HTML is a structured hierarchical language that requires you to follow its rules if you wish your documents to appear correctly. For example, certain elements and tags are required to fit within other elements and tags and will not work unless they are properly placed.
Indicates the title of the document and appears in a browser's bookmark file.
This is an optional tag. It is an empty tag in that it doesn't effect a block of text. <BASE> is used to indicate the original base URL of the web document. If a the document is moved, then all related documents with relative URL's will be referred back to the <BASE> URL. If you do not insert the <BASE> tag the relative URL's will be determined from the URL used to access the document. If you do a good job with your relative addresses you should have no problem in leaving the <BASE> tag out. However, there may be times when it is helpful.
Attribute: HREF
This is an optional tag. <ISINDEX> informs the browser that the document can be examined using a keyword search. <ISINDEX> does not mean that the document appearing on the screen can be searched, rather, it invokes a program on the server which calls a database, which is searched and displayed as a web document.
This is an optional tag. <META> allows meta-information about the document to be placed in the HEAD. This allows the author to provide information about the document that can be used in the indexing of the document. If you use <META> it must take the CONTENT attribute and either the NAME or HTTP-EQUIV attributes.
Example: <META NAME="descriptors" CONTENT="christology ecclesiology patristics">
Example: <META HTTP-EQUIV="Creation-Date" CONTENT="15-May-1996">
Headings <H3>, <H2>, <H3>, <H4>, <H5>, <H6>
Paragraph & Line Break Tag Examples
Before we explore using links, we need to examine the difference between relative and absolute links. A link can have an absolute or relative structure. An absolute link describes a document's aULress in absolute terms. A relative link describes a document relative to another document. Relative links are often used inside a set of web documents. The value of using relative links lies in the ability to move documents from one server to another, or from one directory to another within the same server, without having to change the link address tags. When you use absolute links you often loose this flexibility. As a rule you should use relative links within your web documents.
Image tags link images into a HTML document. Each image tag places a separate request upon the server. A HTML document with four images will require five separate calls to be made to a server, one for the HTML document, four more for the images. If your server is slow or overloaded you will want to keep the number of distinct connections required to load a page to a minimum. You must also be aware of the file size of your images. The larger the image file size, the longer it will take to load. You can reduce the file size of your images by reducing the number of unique colors that your image contains. You can reduce the number of unique colors in an image with graphic manipulation software like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop.
Places a horizontal ruler line across the page. This tag is useful in dividing a web page into distinct units.
Strong emphasis (usually displayed as bold). Use instead of the <B> tag.
Emphasis (usually displayed as itallics). Use instead of the <I> tag.
Used for inserting a citation into the document. The text in a citation tag usually is displayed in italics.
Used for general information about the document's author. Every web page should provide information about the author, and ideally, it should also provide an option for the reader to send e-mail to the author (i.e., the mailto attribute of the anchor tag).
Used for long quotes or citations.
Allows the web author to place comments in the document that are hiULen from the user. This tag is often used to place information about the document in the HEADER. I use it to place publication information about the document in the HEADER which can be used by human or automated indexers to catalog the document (see the Home Page of this document). You can also use it in the body to insert comments about your choice of tags or design considerations.
Used to insert preformated text into a page. The preformated element allows the web page author to display text in unique ways that may not be allowed by other HTML elements. Text in this element will display in courier font, so be aware that the text display will be different than your surrounding text.
Includes Frame tags for Netscape 2.0+ Advanced HTML Tags, including HTML 3.0
Includes Forms, Tables, and other advanced HTML tags
Contact and other information about this tutorial.