HTML BASICS

The Browser allows you to view documents that sit on different servers all over the worlds. When you type a URL you are actually typing the location of the document you wish to see. To create a page you simply do the following create a document using HTML and then upload that page to a server so that everyone can see it.

WHAT IS HTML?

HTML stand for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is basically a way for all computers to understand each other. You can use just about any style or type you are use to using with a word processor, you just need to know the correct tag. Once you know the tag you just need to turn it on AND off. for example " is simply the command in carrots, to is the command repeated but with a slash right after the first carrot. Be careful not turning off a command means the change will effect everything else after the last turnon. There are a lot of Web Applications that will make these tag for you but I will be using and showing BBEDIT which you can download for free at http: or you can use a text editor like Word Pad or Microsoft Word. It really doesn't matter as long as you save the document as TEXT ONLY and use the .htm exstention.

PAGE IMPERATIVES.

As a bare minimum a page must have the following:

Remember you can get this "behind the scenes" of any page by going to the View source on your browser.

Basic Header Tags

Basic Text Formatting

Text can be formatted in a variety of ways. It can be BOLDED, UNDERLINED or ITALICIZED. Be careful when underlining text. Underline generally signifies a hyperlink. The STRONG and EMPHASIS tags serve as alternatives to BOLD and ITALIC You can also use STRIKE-THROUGH and TELETYPE.

This text will be pre-formatted
      and will
          appear exactly
              as I entered it.

The above text looks like this:

Basic Line Breaks

Text can be broken in a variety of ways. We can use both Line and Paragraph Breaks to force text to end and begin on a new line.

Line Breaks

Paragraph Breaks

This is a paragraph break that forces our text to be aligned to the left.

This is a paragraph break that forces our text to be aligned to the center.

This is a paragraph break that forces our text to be aligned to the right.

The above text looks like this:

Heading Tags

There are 6 basic "Headings".

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Heading 1 with a right alignment

Heading 2 with a justified alignment

The above text looks like this:

Font Tags

Font Size 1
Font Size 2
Font Size 3
Font Size 4
Font Size 5
Font Size 6
Font Size 7

Font Size="-2"
Font Size="-1"
Font Size="+1"
Font Size="+2"
Font Size="+3"
Font Size="+4"

Big Tag
Small Tag

The above text looks like this:

Horizontal Rules

The above rules look like this:

COLOR

In the next class we will look at a more complicated way of using color on the Web using hexadecimal. However you can also use color very simply by using tags and color names. For example, simple words such as "red" to modify the color a background or text. For example RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, ORANGE, GRAY.

The above looks like this:

Although it is not necessary to memorize these tags it is important to get familiar with them. Check out Willcam's Tag Index which is an easy to use, very comprehensive resource for all you