/cover/

The basics of HTML

1. Title - This tag, which holds the text displayed in the browser's title bar, is found in the < head > area of a document. The coding for the title of our sample page would look like this: < title > HTML 101 < /title >

2. Headlines - There are six sizes of headline, which go from the large < h1 > to the tiny < h6 >. < h1 > How to build a Web page < /h1 >

3. Paragraphs - These contain body text. Separated by the < p > tag. < p > You have a great idea ... do it yourself? < /p >

4. Bold - Use the < b > tag. < b > learn < /b >

5. Italics - Use the < i > tag. < i > hypertext markup language< /i >

6. Hyperlinks - Links are built using the < a > tag with an "href" attribute that tells the link where to go. You can link to a single page or graphic on your site, the Web address for another site, or a single page or graphic at another site. < a href="intimidate.html" > intimidate < /a >

7. Images - Embedding a picture on a page is a breeze, even though the code looks like this: < img src="lightbulb.jpg" height="10" width="10" alt="Lightbulb graphic" >
The < img > tag doesn't require a closing tag. The tag has several attributes. The "src" part of this tag is the important attribute. It indicates the name of your image or the URL for an image somewhere else on the Web. Be sure to include the attributes for the graphic's height and width in pixels to help speed up the page—the attributes help the browser think faster when loading. If you put in an "alt" attribute, the text indicated will show up if the image isn't available. Put hyperlink tags around an image to make it a clickable link.

8. Tables - This is the most difficult aspect of HTML. We only cover the very basics here; for more, go to www.accessmagazine.com and click on "How to build a Web page." Tables are primarily used to format the look of a page or hold tabular information, such as the navigation bar in our example. This entire page is formatted with tables so that the text doesn't run the whole width of the page.

Tables are made up of rows. Each row and the cell or cells in that row (cells contain data) gets its own tag: < tr > indicates a table row, < td > indicates table data in a cell. The HTML for our example would look like this:

< table border=0 width=50 > (border=0 makes the borders invisible; width is 50 pixels)
< tr > < td >
How
< /td > < /tr >
< tr > < td >
Why
< /td > < /tr >
< tr> < td >
Where
< /td > < /tr > < /table >