Brackets
All HTML tags are enclosed within < > brackets, or tags. Anything that is written between the < and > brackets will be invisible and tell your browser to do something.
For example:
<center>, </center> will center your text.
Case Sensitive
HTML tags are NOT case sensitive. So, <center> is the same as <CENTER> which is the same as <Center>. There is one exception though, and that is image file names. So a file name should be written exactly as it looks.
An example would be:
<img src="blue.gif"> is not the same as <img src="Blue.gif">
Format
All HTML documents should follow the same basic format. If they do not some commands may not function the way you want them too. The basic for all HTML documents should be
HTML:
This will tell the browser that it is an HTML document, this should be standard in all your web pages.
Title:
This should describe the content of the page. Try not to make it longer then 64 characters. If someone was to bookmark your page, they would see this as the page title. Try to make it descriptive. "Cars" would be a poor title, but "Mustang Cars" would be better, best would be "1964-1969 Mustangs". An example of this code is:
<title>BBC Home Page -=- The Basics</title>
Head:
The Head tags surround the title and introductory text. You will learn more about tags that go into the head later in the more advanced parts of this site.
Body:
This is the main part of your page, where everyone will see what you want them to see. an example is:
<body>Hello everyone and welcome to my web site</body>
Closing Tags:
You must remember your closing tags. If you do not, some browsers will not read the page correctly or not see the page at all.
Different Browsers
Not all HTML tags are supported by all browsers. If a tag is not recognised by a browser, it will usually just ignore it. Some browsers are text only and will not support images or frames, some will not support tables or frames but support pictures. We suggest trying your page out it as many browsers as you can.
Line Breaks
<br>
This starts a new line. NO closing tag is needed.
To Centre Text or Images
Note: This is one of the numerous awkward Americanised vocabulary tags that cause Anglophones to make mistakes. To centre, think center; to colour, think color!
The <center> tag will cause whatever follows to be centred in the next line. You must always close with the </center> tag or else your whole document will be centred.
An example:
<center>This text is centered </center>
will appear as:
This text is centered
