HTML Tags
- HTML tags are used to mark-up HTML elements
- HTML tags are surrounded by the two characters < and >
- The surrounding characters are called angle brackets
- HTML tags normally come in pairs like <b> and </b>
- The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second
tag is the end tag
- The text between the start and end tags is the element
content
- HTML tags are not case sensitive, <b> means
the same as <B>
List of Common HTML Tags
HTM or HTML Extension?
When you save an HTML file, you can use either the
.htm or
the
.html extension. We have used .html in our
examples. Most editors when using the windows operating system,
or windows applications will default to .htm. That is probably
inherited from the software that only allowed three letter extensions.
It is important that you be consistant with your naming conventions.
Either use one or the other, but NEVER both on the same web site.
Note on HTML Editors:
You can easily edit HTML files using a WYSIWYG
(what you see is what you get) editor like Dreamweaver,
FrontPage, Claris Home Page, or Adobe PageMill
instead of writing your markup tags in a plain
text file. But if you want to be a skillful Web
developer, we strongly recommend that you use
a plain text editor to learn your primer HTML.
Why do We Use Lowercase Tags?
We have just said that HTML tags are not case
sensitive: <B> means the same as <b>. When
you surf the Web, you will notice that most tutorials
use uppercase HTML tags in their examples. We
always use lowercase tags. Why?
If you want to prepare yourself for the next generations of HTML you
should start using lowercase tags. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
recommends lowercase tags in their HTML 4 recommendation, and XHTML
(the next generation HTML) demands lowercase tags.
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
</html>
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The first tag in your HTML document is <html>. This tag tells your
browser that this is the start of an HTML document. The last tag in
your document is </html>. This tag tells your browser that this
is the end of the HTML document. The text between the <head> tag
and the </head> tag is header information. Header information is
not displayed in the browser window. The text between the <title> tags
is the title of your document. The title is displayed in your browser's
caption. The text between the <body> tags is the text that will
be displayed in your browser. The text between the <b> and </b> tags
will be displayed in a bold font.
Headings
Headings are defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags. <h1> defines
the largest heading. <h6> defines the smallest heading.
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<h2>This is a heading</h2>
<h3>This is a heading</h3>
<h4>This is a heading</h4>
<h5>This is a heading</h5>
<h6>This is a heading</h6>
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HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after a heading.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag.
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>
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Line Breaks
The <br> tag is used when you want to end a line, but don't want to
start a new paragraph. The <br> tag forces a line break wherever you
place it.
<p>This <br> is a para<br>graph with line breaks</p>
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The <br> tag is an empty tag. It has no closing tag.
Comments in HTML
The comment tag is used to insert a comment in the HTML source code.
A comment will be ignored by the browser. You can use comments to explain
your code, which can help you when you edit the source code at a later
date.
<!-- This is a comment -->
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Note that you need an exclamation point after the opening bracket,
but not before the closing bracket.
Useful Tips
When you write HTML text, you can never be sure how the text is displayed
in another browser. Some people have large computer displays, some have
small. The text will be reformatted every time the user resizes his window.
Never try to format the text in your editor by adding empty lines and
spaces to the text. HTML will truncate the spaces in your text. Any number
of spaces count as one. Some extra information: In HTML a new line counts
as one space. Using empty paragraphs <p> to insert blank lines
is a bad habit. Use the <br> tag instead. (But don't use the <br> tag
to create lists. Wait until you have learned about HTML lists.) You might
have noticed that paragraphs can be written without the closing tag </p>.
Don't rely on it. The next version of HTML will not allow you to skip
ANY closing tags.
The Anchor Tag and the Href Attribute
HTML uses the <a> (anchor) tag to create a link to another document.
An anchor can point to any resource on the Web: an HTML page, an
image, a sound file, a movie, etc.
The syntax of creating an anchor:
<a href="url">Text to be displayed</a>
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The <a> tag is used to create an anchor to link from, the href
attribute is used to address the document to link to, and the words
between the open and close of the anchor tag will be displayed as
a hyperlink.
The Image Tag and the Src Attribute
In HTML, images are defined with the <img> tag. The <img> tag
is empty, which means that it contains attributes only and it has no
closing tag. To display an image on a page, you need to use the src
attribute. Src stands for "source". The value of the src attribute
is the URL of the image you want to display on your page.
The syntax of defining an image:
The URL points to the location where the image is stored. The browser
puts the image where the image tag occurs in the document. If you
put an image tag between two paragraphs, the browser shows the first
paragraph, then the image, and then the second paragraph.
The Alt Attribute
The alt attribute is used to define an "alternate text" for an image.
The value of the alt attribute is an author-defined text:
<img src="msulogo.gif" alt="MSU Logo">
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The "alt" attribute tells the reader what he or she is missing on
a page if the browser can't load images. The browser will then display
the alternate text instead of the image. It is a good practice to include
the "alt" attribute for each image on a page, to improve the display
and usefulness of your document for people who have text-only browsers.
Backgrounds
The <body> tag has two attributes where you can specify backgrounds.
The background can be a color or an image.
Bgcolor
The bgcolor attribute sets the background to a color. The value of this
attribute can be a hexadecimal number, an RGB value, or a color name.
<body bgcolor="#000000">
<body bgcolor="rgb(0,0,0)">
<body bgcolor="black">
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The lines above all set the background color to black.
Background
The background attribute sets the background to an image. The value of
this attribute is the URL of the image you want to use. If the image
is smaller than the browser window, the image will repeat itself until
it fills the entire browser window.
<body background="msulogo.gif">
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Note: If you want to use a background image, you should keep
in mind:
- Will the background image increase the loading time too much?
Tip: Image files should be maximum 10k
- Will the background image look good with other images on the page?
- Will the background image look good with the text colors on the
page?
- Will the background image look good when it is repeated on the
page?
- Will the background image take away the focus from the text?
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