LESSON 2: THE COMMON TAGS Headings Headings are some of the most important tags within the BODY of your HTML document. You will usually use a heading to tell what the following section of your page is about. The opening tag for a heading is <hy> and the closing tag is </hy> with y being the size of the heading... from 1 to 6. (1 being largest, and 6 being smallest) Example of heading tags... H1: Bob fell over the chicken. <h1>H1: Bob fell over the chicken.</h1> H2: Bob fell over the chicken. <h2>H2: Bob fell over the chicken.</h2> H3: Bob fell over the chicken. <h3>H3: Bob fell over the chicken.</h3> H4: Bob fell over the chicken. <h4>H4: Bob fell over the chicken.</h4> H5: Bob fell over the chicken. <h5>H5: Bob fell over the chicken.</h5> H6: Bob fell over the chicken. <h6>H6: Bob fell over the chicken.</h6> Horizontal Ruled Lines... Horizontal Ruled Lines are used to separate different areas of a web page. The tag for a horizontal ruled line is <hr>. The horizontal ruled line DOES NOT have a closing tag. You may also add certain attributes to the <hr> tag, such as WIDTH=n (for fixed pixel width) or WIDTH=n% for a certain percentage of the screen wide, SIZE=n to make the line a certain pixel amount thick, and NOSHADE to turn the line's shading off. A plain <hr> with no attributes will make the line the full width of the screen. Example of horizontal ruled lines... <hr width=50> <hr width=50%> <hr size=7> <hr noshade> You may also use several attributes within one tag... <hr width=50% size=10 noshade> Paragraphs... You will often use paragraphs in HTML, just as you do when you write stories. The opening tag for a paragraph is <p>, and the closing tag is </p>. The closing tag for a paragraph is not always needed, but I recommend using it anyway. Example of a paragraph... Bob starts to chase the chicken around. Bob trips over a string and goes flying into the pig's mud pit! eww! What a pity! <p>Bob starts to chase the chicken around. Bob trips over a string and goes flying into the pig's mud pit! eww! What a pity!</p> Text Formatting Properties... If you had an entire web page without formatted text, it would look rather dull and boring. This is why we use text formatting tags. Some common text formatting tags are: <b> and </b> for bold, <i> and </i> for italics, <u> and </u> for underlined, and <tt> and </tt> for typewriter. Text Formatting Properties...Font Tags The <font size=n> and </font> tags come in handy. n is the number of font points by which to change the size of the current font. n can be positive or negative: a positive number will increase the font size, and a negative number will decrease it. n can also be an absolute number, indicating an absolute size for the font (not a relative size). Example of font tags... Bob is a Cool Guy isn't he? <font size=+1>Bob</font> <font size=+2>is</font> <font size=+3>a</font> <font size+2>Cool</font> <font size=+1>Guy</font> isn't <font size=-1>he?</font> ALIGN attributes Many tags support ALIGN attributes... if you want something to be aligned from the left margin, from the center, or from the right margin. The ALIGN attribute is placed in the opening tag before the >. Left Align <h1 align=left>Left Align</h1> Center Align <h1 align=center>Center Align</h1> Right Align <h1 align=right>Right Align</h1> The Line Break When your HTML document is viewed, normally the text will do a word-wrap at the end of a line. If you want to have the text BREAK (go to another line) you will use the <br> tag. This tag has no closing tag. Example WITHOUT line Break Sentence One. Sentence Two. Sentence Three. Example WITH line Break Sentence One. Sentence Two. Sentence Three. Sentence One. Sentence Two. Sentence Three. Sentence One.<br> Sentence Two.<br> Sentence Three.<br> Preformatted Text If you wish to have text line up properly (a.k.a. fixed width text) that will include line breaks without the use of the <br> you may find the <pre> and </pre> tags helpful. Example of text WITHOUT preformatting The cat ran after the dog. ^ ^-verb ^noun ^-noun The cat ran after the dog. ^ ^-verb ^noun ^-noun HTML ignores the extra line breaks, so the text does not line up properly. Example of text WITH preformatting. The cat ran after the dog. ^ ^-verb ^noun ^-noun <pre> The cat ran after the dog. ^ ^-verb ^noun ^-noun </pre> YOUR SECOND WEB PAGE !!! Add the following to your HTML page ("index.htm"), between the lines <body> and </body>: <h1>This is a heading 1</h1> <hr> This is the home page of <b>YOURNAME</b>. <p>Type something about yourself here. Describe briefly who you are and what you do for a living. Remember to use bold and italic text, for emphasis.</p> Save the text file as "index.htm". YOU WOULD HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS The CENTER tag The center tag pretty much explains itself. The opening center tag is <center> and the closing center tag is </center>. Whatever you put between will be centered on the current line! Example of CENTER tag... Center Works <center><h1>Center Works</h1></center> The BODY attributes The BODY tag has many attributes... here are a the most useful ones... BACKGROUND="location_of_image" - Background Image BGCOLOR="#hexadecimal_here" - Background Colour LINK="#hexadecimal_here" - Colour of Links VLINK="#hexadecimal_here" - Colour of Links the User has Already Visited TEXT="#hexadecimal_here" - Text Colour YOUR THIRD WEB PAGE !!! Select a picture from your computer and save it in the same folder with your index.htm file. Save it as bgimage.png or any other extension like jpeg, jpg e.t.c.. Mine is a jpg file.. Add the following to your HTML page ("idex.htm"): (the blue text is what to add) <html> <head><title>My Home Page</title></head> <body background="bgimage.jpg"> <center><h1>This is a heading 1</h1></center> <hr> This is the home page of <b>YOURNAME</b>. <p>Type something about yourself here. Describe briefly who you are and what you do for a living. Remember to use bold and italic text, for emphasis.</p> </body> </html> Save the text file as "index.htm". YOU WOULD HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS

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