About HTML
Formatting Text (This is an old page - get the new version here)

HTML is the language used by world wide web pages and is pretty simple to use. It's normal text to which opening and closing 'tags' are added which control how the text is displayed. The tags are invisible when the web page is viewed in a web browser.

You can write pages in a variety of ways:

  • Use a program to write the HTML for you. There are lots of them, you can even use some word processors. The first part of this page was written with Composer from Netscape. (easy but limited). The final version was edited in Dreamweaver.
  • Use a text editor to write the HTML directly.  (needs a knowledge of HTML and is tedious)
  • Rough out the basics in a HTML editor then finish it by editing the HTML using a text editor. The one we use is Edit Plus.
  • Copy someone else's code - just choose the bits you want and cut and paste it into your own page. Of course you will always give credit to the originator, won't you?
  • Use a specially designed web page editor - the most expensive option but a good investment if you produce lots of pages. We recommend Dreamweaver from Macromedia. You won't find us recommending many programs which are quite as expensive as this one. We were a bit daunted by the price, but it has saved us hours of work. If you would rather go with a less expensive option, be prepared for a lot more work and not as good of a result. Others are Coffeecup HTML, 1-4 All, Kool HTML editor but only (as a last resort) Microsoft's Front Page Editor :)
Text
Colour

HTMLdocumentscandisplaytextinLOTSOFDIFFERENTCOLORS-Youcanchoosejustaboutanycoloryoucannameandafewmorebesides.Letyourimaginationrunwild! But, whatever you do - don't write web pages using this multicoloured effect you've just seen used.
You
Can

Also

Choose

Different

Text

Sizes

AND USEDIFFERENTSIZESONONELINE

Text can be written in Bold, Italic and be underlined and of course you cancombine these effects

  • You can add bullet points
  • to draw attention to
  • the major points you make
  1. You can also
  2. number paragraphs
  3. if you wish

Formatting

Text may be left justified
or left aligned

Or text may be centered
if you wish
Or you can right align
or right justify text
Fully  justifying text is a little more tricky in HTML since the window in which it is displayed can alter in size. The only way to do it is by hand or by using a stylesheet.
You can make text blink if you wish to draw attention to something but use this effect sparingly - it gets very annoying and is only normally available in Netscape's browser
 You can use superscript text as in E=mc2 or subscript text as in H2O

And if you really want to do it you can use strikeout.

I use strikeout to indicate where I have made a mistaek mistake.

There are also a variety of text effects which involve using the language Java to manipulate text. A new effect available for Netscape users is 
Dancing Text Appears Here .
Fonts

Lots of fonts appears here
^        Algerian        ^ ^ Britannic Bold ^ ^Brushscript^   --------------------^EngrvrsOldEnglish^
But be warned, the viewer may not have the same fonts available on their computer and it may look like this:
You can display your text using   different font styles as in this example
^        Algerian        ^ ^ Britannic Bold ^ ^Brushscript^     ^EngrvrsOldEnglish^
  • If the second example does not look the same then you don't have that font available on your computer. Because of this beware of using different fonts other than the basic 'variable width', 'fixed width' and 'Sans Serif' fonts.

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© 2000 JayDax Designs