Inquisicorp Staff Intranet Wiki | Marketing / HTML Basics

This section covers some basic HTML commands and explains the steps involved in preparing a document for viewing via the World Wide Web.

Basic steps: using tags

HTML uses tags to communicate to the client (browser) how to display text and images. Tags are contained in < > symbols. In most cases you start with the beginning tag, put in the word or words that will be affected by this tag, and at the end of the string of word(s), you place a closing tag.

For example, to make a world bold, you would do the following:

 <b>My First HTML Document</b>

The closing tag normally contains a "/" before the directive to indicate the termination of the action.

HTML tags are not case-sensitive, although URLs generally are. In most cases (with the exception of preformatted text) HTML collapses many spaces to one space and does not read blank lines. However, when you write your text you should leave several blank lines between paragraphs to make editing your HTML source document easier.

Headers

There are up to six levels of headers that can be used in your document, h1 through h6. Header 1 is the largest header and they get progressively smaller through header 6. Below are each of the six headers and how they usually appear in relation to one another.

<h1>This is a header 1 tag</h1>

<h2>This is a header 2 tag</h2>

<h3>This is a header 3 tag</h3>

<h4>This is a header 4 tag</h4>

<h5>This is a header 5 tag</h5>

<h6>This is a header 6 tag</h6>

Headers not only vary in size, they are also bold and have a blank line inserted before and after them. It's important to use headers only for headings, not just to make text bold (we cover the bold tag later).

Paragraphs

In HTML, a paragraph tag <p> should be put at the end of every paragraph of "normal" text (normal being defined as not already having a tag associated with it).

    <p> causes a line break and adds a trailing blank line

    <br> causes a line break with no trailing blank line

As a convenience to yourself and others who might have to edit your HTML documents, it's a very good idea to put two or three blank lines between paragraphs to facilitate editing.

Boldface and Italics

You can add emphasis to text by using the boldface and italic tags or the emphasis and strong tags.

There is an underline tag as well, but most people don't use it since text that is linked is often underlined. The potential for confusion and the archaic nature of underlining in general make it a poor marker for emphasis.

When using these tags, you usually cannot (and probably should not) have text that is both boldface and italics; the last tag encountered is usually the tag that is displayed. For example, if you had a boldface tag followed immediately by an italic tag, the tagged word would appear in italics.

Physical tags

    This is a <b>boldface</b> tag. 

    This is an <i>italic</i> tag.

Logical tags

    This is a <strong>strongly emphasized</strong> tag. 

    This is an <em>emphasized</em> tag.

There is a subtle distinction between the above "physical" tags which merely change the displayed font, and "logical" styles which are used (or eventually will be) to make types of emphasis client specific (for instance, using the <em> tag would make text red). While either style is fine, be aware that differences in these two kinds of tags may be more apparent with advances in HTML.

Lists

There is an easy way in HTML to have numbered, unnumbered, and definition lists. In addition, you can nest lists within lists.

When using lists, you have no control over the amount of space between the bullet or list number, HTML automatically does this for you. Neither (as yet) do you have control over what type of bullet will be used as each browser is different.

Unnumbered lists

Unnumbered lists are started with the <ul> tag, followed by the actual list items, which are marked with the <li> tag. The list is ended with the ending tag </ul>.

For example, here is an unnumbered list with three items:

    <ul>
    <li> list item 1
    <li> list item 2
    <li> list item 3
    </ul>

Here is how that list would display:

        * list item 1
        * list item 2
        * list item 3

Numbered lists

Here is the same list using a numbered list format:

    <ol>
    <li> list item 1
    <li> list item 2
    <li> list item 3
    </ol>

Here is how that list would display:

       1. list item 1
       2. list item 2
       3. list item 3

Definition lists

Definition lists allow you to indent without necessarily having to use bullets.

    <dl>
    <dt> This is a term
    <dd> This is a definition
    <dd> And yet another definition
    <dt> Another term
    <dd> Another definition
    </dl>

And here is how this would be displayed

    This is a term
        This is a definition. 
        And yet another definition. 
    Another term
        Another definition

Nested lists

Finally, here is a nested list within an unnumbered list (we could just have easily had a nested list within a numbered list).

    <ul>
    <li> list item 1
     <ul>
     <li> nested item 1
     <li> nested item 2
     </ul>
    <li> list item 2
     <ul>
     <li> nested item 1
     <li> nested item 2
     </ul>
    <li> list item 3
     <ul>
     <li> nested item 1
     <li> nested item 2
     </ul>
    </ul>

Here is how that list would display:

        * list item 1
              o nested item 1
              o nested item 2 
        * list item 2
              o nested item 1
              o nested item 2 
        * list item 3
              o nested item 1
              o nested item 2

Blockquote

The blockquote tag indents the text (both on the left and right) inside the tags. The blockquote tag looks like this:

Center

You can center text, images, and headings with the center tag:

<center>This is a centered sentence</center>

The center tag automatically inserts a line break after the closing center tag.

Comments

It is possible to include comments in a source HTML document that do not appear when seen through a browser. This is most useful for giving warnings and special instructions to future editors of your document.

Comments take the form:

The comment can even break lines

Strike-through

Should you want it, there is a strike-through tag which displays text with a strike.

<strike>This is struck through text</strike>