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Well, I've come to the conclusion that
several of my fellow web denizens could benefit from a simple HTML
tutorial... so here you go.
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.
That's not important. What is important is that learning even the
basics of HTML will make creating your own website far easier.
HTML was never meant to do the things it's
used for today, thus it can be painfully inept at getting things done.
However, it's still the standard, and since I'm not brilliant enough to
learn Flash or anything like that, HTML will have to do. Hopefully this will
help you out--if you need help with something, feel free to e-mail me.
You can write HTML in just about any word
processor, including Notepad, which is a program most computers have. It
obviously won't be yellow, as it is here, but I made it that way to help
distinguish it from the rest of the page. Moving along...
In HTML, all the information about your page
is stored within tags. A tag is a command within the < and
> symbols around
it. For instance, at the beginning of each page, you start with the HTML
tag: <HTML> This lets the browser know that the page is written in HTML. At
the end of the page, you put </HTML>. The
/ symbol closes the tag.
This is the basic form of any new page:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> The title of your page </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY> Your page's content... blah blah blah. </BODY>
</HTML>
As I said before, <HTML> just lets your
browser know a page was written in HTML.
<HEAD> is the portion of your page in which you put the
title. Later on you may use it to put portions of more complex HTML, CSS and
JavaScript codes, but for now, the title's all you need.
<TITLE> is (obviously) the title of your page.
<BODY> is the tag you put most other tags within--this could be considered
the actual page, much like the body of a letter.
Here are a few basic tags (remember,
use / to close them):
<B> makes your text bold
<U> makes your text underlined
<I> makes your text italic
<S> or <STRIKE> makes your text strikethrough
<TT> makes your text typewriter type
<CENTER> centers things... duh
Here are some other important tags you should
know.
<BR> inserts a line
break (no need to close this tag):
HTML:
Line 1<BR>
Line 2 |
Rendered in browser:
Line 1
Line 2 |
<P>
defines a new paragraph:
HTML:
Line 1<P>
Line 2</P> |
Rendered in browser:
Line 1
Line 2 |
You may use the "align" property within the
paragraph tag as well. This gives the browser a little more information
about how you want the paragraph to look.
HTML:
Line 1<P ALIGN="right">
Line 2</P> |
Rendered in browser:
Line 1
Line 2 |
You can use "right", "left", and "center"
with "align". <HR> inserts a horizontal line
(no need to close this tag):
Try it...you'll like it...
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