Web Design Tutorials

 

What is an HTML File?

  • HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
  • An HTML file is a text file containing small markup tags
  • Markup tags tell the browser how to display the page
  • An HTML file must have an .htm or .html file extension
  • An HTML file can be created using a simple text editor

 

 
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
</html>

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.

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.

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

 

 

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.

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>

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>

 

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>

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 -->

Note that you need an exclamation point after the opening bracket, but not before the closing bracket.

Basic Notes - 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>

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.

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