HTML
HTML is the building blocks of web design. HTML is made up of tags which appear in less than (<) and greater than (>) signs. These tell your browser how to present the content found within them. Most HTML tags have an opening and a closing tag. The closing tag contains a / after the less than (<) sign.
Although HTML fundamentally lacks any formal structure, HTML documents must adhere to a few basic structural rules. Most web pages are divided into two sections: the <head> and the <body>.
The <head> section contains information about your web page such as it's title, meta tags, links to external files such as style sheets and any reusable scripting such as javascript. The only element in the <head> section that is visible in your web browser is the <title> - the message that appears in the title bar of your browser window.
The <body> section contains the visible content of your page along with additional formatting rules.
Let's look at some basic HTML text formatting tags -
To bold text use the <b> tag </b>
To make text italic use the <i> tags </i>
To change the colour of text use the <font color="#996633"> tag </font>
Telling your browser how to format text is one thing. However, you will also want to tell it where to place the text. There are several ways to do this.
If you want your text to appear in paragraphs you can use the <p></p> tags. All text within these tags will wrap neatly to appear on the web page.
If you wish to place defined carriage returns in your text you can use the <br> breakpoint tags. One <br> tag is equal to one carriage return.
For more sophisticated formating you should use tables <table></table>. Tables enable you to create mulitple rows and columns of data. Each table cell may contain text or images or a combination. Using tables allows you to create complex layouts while maintain control over the position of your page content. Beware of complex or nested tables however as they may dramatically increase your web page download time.
Website author: Amanda Burns © 2000