Introduction to HTML

HTML is a very basic coding language used in the building and formatting of websites. No knowledge of HTML is required to use the management software, however it can be employed if you like to add a little variety to your web pages.

We will concern ourselves in this document on the simplest of HTML commands including carriage returns (line breaks), and such simple font effects as making type bold, italicized and underlined, as well as a few slightly more complicated font effects such as changing the font being used (called the "face"), changing the size, or changing the color of the font being displayed.

These formatting effects, and in fact all HTML commands are contained in what are called HTML "tags". A "tag" is simply a word or abbreviation enclosed within the two arrows located above the space bar like so "<>". The word or abbreviation enclosed within the arrows will always refer in some way to the formatting effect that tag carries out.

For example, when using HTML, and when using the manager software, carriage returns are not recognized. This means that if in your classroom description you wish to display two paragraphs seperated by a blank line, you cannot simply hit enter twice, you need to employ a very basic HTML tag. This tag is simply "<br>", with the "br" standing for "break" or "line break". To create the above effect, two paragraphs seperated by a blank line, you would simply follow the end of the first paragraph with two "break" tags like so, "<br><br>" . The first tag will cause a carriage return from the last line of the first paragraph to the next line, and the second tag will result in second carriage return effectively creating a blank line. You would then continue with the second paragraph which will now be nicely positioned a line below the first paragraph.

The "<br>" is one of the simplest tags and can be implemented without any accompanying tags. Most tags however cause some actual change in the appearance of your text, such as italicizing it, and need to be "closed", in other words told when to stop causing that effect, otherwise everything you type after the tag will be affected. Take for instance the "<em>" tag used to italicize, or "emphasize", your text. Say you only wanted one word within a paragraph to be italicized, you would then place the tag "<em>" right before the desired word, telling the web browser to emphasize what follows, but you would then follow that desired word with the closing tag, "</em>", telling the brower to stop emphasizing the text. As you can see, the only difference between the tags is that the closing tag contains a slash before the enclosed command. For example the tag to make text bold is simply "<b>" and the command to stop making the text bold is "</b>".

The final tag we will go over is the "<font>" tag and is used primarily to change the color of the text, the font used for the text, and the size of the text. This is the most complex tag we will cover because it requires additional commands to be placed within it. For instance if you wanted to change the color of a block of text to say blue, you would start with the "<font>" tag but would include within it an additional command to change the text to blue, like so "<font color="blue">". If you had preferred the text to be red, you would simply substitute "red" for "blue". Likewise if you wanted to change the text to the verdana font you would employ the tag, <font face="verdana">, "face" being the HTML name for "font" (don't ask me why, I don't know). Like most HTML tags, the "<font>" tag will need to be "closed" once you no longer desire its effect. To do this you simply insert the closing tag "</font>" after the last element you wish to be affected, you do not need to inclued the "color=" or "face=" additions within the closing tag.

You may have noticed that the assigned values within the "<font>" tag (ie "red", "blue", "verdana"), are all enclosed within double quotations, this is not absolutely necessary but is good convention as some browsers might misread the command if they are not there. The double quotations are only used for values that can be assigned such as specific colors, type of font, or size of text. If this is all very confusing don't worry too much. Check out some of the examples on the next page as well as the link off of your manager to become more aquainted with how the tags work, and don't be afraid to have a little fun, experiment with your site. Remember nothing is permanent on your sites, you can always undo any mistakes you might make.