Basic HTML

HTML

In class we discussed the basic layout of a Web page. You should remember these points:

HTML uses tags to instruct the browser how to display the text on the screen. Most tags come in pairs, one before the text on which they work, and one immediately after.
The first line of a file to be displayed as a Web page is <HTML> ; the last line of the file is </HTML>
A Web page is typically divided into two parts - the HEAD and the BODY. The HEAD is delimited by <HEAD> and </HEAD>, the BODY by < BODY > and </BODY> .
The text to be diplayed on the screen goes in the BODY of the HTML page. Any spacing or line breaks in the HTML file is ignored by the browser when the text is displayed on the screen. In order to insert a new line, we must use the <BR> tag which inserts a line break.
The paragraph tag, <P>,is used to break the text into paragraphs.
If we want some text to appear in bold face, we use the <B> and </B> tags around the text, for example: <B> This will appear in bold face</B> . To display text in italics, we use <I> and </I> around the text.
To include headings on the page, we use <H2> and </H2> or <H3> and </H3> around the headings. Actually, there are six different heading sizes - H1 is the largest, H6 is the smallest.
To organize information in a list (just like the list of HTML information on this page!) we first specify whether we want an ordered list (numbered), or an unordered list (bulleted). For an ordered list, use the tags <ol> to begin the list and </ol> to end the list. Similarly, for an unordered list, use <ul> to begin the list and </ul> to end the list.
Within the list, mark the beginning of each new item with the "list item" tag <li>
To include a link on your page, you must specify two things:
1. the text for the link (the words on your page that will show up underlined in blue)
2. the URL of the page which is to be linked to.
Suppose you want to include a link to the Brooklyn College home page. You want the text on your web page to say:
I am a student at Brooklyn College

The HTML text to do that would be:
```
 I am a student at  <A HREF="http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu">  Brooklyn College  </A>  
```
To include an image on your page, you must first have an image stored in a file which is in an appropriate format to be displayed on a web page. The file would have the extension ".gif" or ".jpg" or ".jpeg" Other image formats do not display properly on all browsers.
How does one get images in those formats? From scanning in an image, using graphics software to create pictures, using a digital camera, etc.
The easiest way for you to get an image is to download one from the Web. Position the mouse over the image you want, click with the right button, then choose the menu item "Save as" to save the image on your disk.
Once you have an image file on your disk, you can include it on your page by using the <img> tag: Suppose the image is stored in a file called
```
mypic.gif
```
The HTML code to include it on your page is:
```
 <IMG SRC="mypic.gif">  
```
Make sure that the image file is in the same directory as your html file for the web page.