HTML is a language that is coded with tags. They are called tags because they tag parts of a webpage for formatting in a browser. HTML tags are very easy to spot in web page source. They are the things shown that start with a < and end with a >. Most HTML tags have an opening tag (<tag>) to start formatting text and a closing tag (</tag>) to end the formatting.
There are some HTML tags that are absolutely necessary in an HTML page. Those tags are as follows:
<HTML>' and </HTML>': Usually put at the top (<HTML>) and bottom (</HTML>) of an HTML page. This tag tells the browser that this page is an HTML page.
<HEAD> and </HEAD>: This is where information about the entire page is placed.
<TITLE> and </TITLE>: This tag needs to be put between the <HEAD> and </HEAD>. This tag gives a name for your page. The name won't be shown in the the text of the page, but rather in the top of the browser window.
<BODY> and </BODY>: This tag defines the body portion of the page. Later we will learn how to use the <BODY> tag to add background colors, text colors, and margins.
Now that we know the required tags, I'm going to put my text that I gathered in the last lesson in the proper web page format.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Justin's Homepage</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY> Welcome to Justin's Web Page!
Hi, My name is Justin. I built this web page because I love coding in HTML! I could do it all day long!
I am a lover of programming languages, and love to design and produce web content.
Thanks for visiting my page!
Yours Truly,
-Justin
</BODY> </HTML> But wait 1 second! I typed that, and opened it with my browser, and it does'nt come out like that! What? Does it come out like this:
Welcome to Justin's Web Page! Hi, My name is Justin. I built this web page because I love coding in HTML! I could do it all day long! I am a lover of programming languages, and love to design and produce web content. Thanks for visiting my page! Yours Truly, -Justin
Yes? Ohmygod! We forgot the formatting tags!
The <p> tag can add paragraph spacing to your page. The <BR> tag adds a single line break to your page.
These tags do not need a <p> and </p>, or <BR> and </BR>, unlike the other tags.
So now our page is coded like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Justin's Homepage</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Welcome to Justin's Web Page!<p>
Hi, My name is Justin. I built this web page because I love coding in HTML! I could do it all day long!<p>
I am a lover of programming languages, and love to design and produce web content.<p>
Thanks for visiting my page!<p>
Yours Truly,<BR>
-Justin
</BODY>
</HTML>
Great! We have format! Now i'll bet you want that first line to be large, right? This can be accomplished by what's called a "header". The header is made by putting in <Hx> "header text goes here" </Hx>, where the "x" is a number from 1-6, the bigger the number the bigger the header. So in our page it looks like <H2>Welcome to Justin's Web Page!</H2>. Note that i removed the <p> tag, since header are already paragraph spaced!
Go ahead and make your page, save it with a ".html" extension at the end (HTML pages all need either .htm or .html extensions) open it with your browser and meet me at the next lesson!