Basic HTML - An Unoffical, Unfinished Start, to a Guide - By Tom Oliver
HTML - What the hell is it?
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language used by webpages to tell the browsers what to portray. It is very simple - the coding easy to remember and close enough to English to make it simple to learn.
General usage of HTML
To start an HTML file, you firstly need to type this:
<HTML>
To end it, you need this:
</HTML>
Putting text between these two lines, will give a very basic webpage.
To be absolutely correct, you should insert the tag <body> around your text like this:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<BR>
All your text goes here...
<BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
What do all these new bits mean?
The new bits, <BR>, <BODY>, and </BODY>, tell the browser two things. <BR> tells the browser to insert a break there - giving your text some space above and below it. When you want to insert a break into a piece of text, you'll need to insert these. If there is no <BR>, in the HTML coding, the browsers lump all the text together in one huge chunk.
NB: Common mistake - pressing return whilst writing the HTML file will apparently add a break, but this break will not appear when you view it with a web browser.
The other new addition, <BODY>, informs the browser that the section between <BODY> and </BODY> is the main body of text. In reality, most browser are forgiving enough to still display text outside of these tags (a tag is <something>, and an end tag is </something>), but if you don't add these around your text, you may find there are some problems and it can look messy. If you have any doubts, leave them in.
Now you can produce a very, very simple webpage.
I'll explain how to go onto the next stage when I've finished writing it up.
If you want any questions about HTML answered - no matter how simple or fundamental, I'll answer them. Just mail me, Tom Oliver. I'll write back within a few days. Anyone with any HTML experience, who has a guide of their own and would like a link to it from this page, send me your URL and I'll create it just below here.
Please: No javascript questions please - I'm still learning that! *l*
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Links to HTML Guidance pages:
Annabella's HTML Help
Copyright Tom Oliver © 1998
