Introduction to <HTML>
Layout of an <HTML> Document
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a series of special tags that format standard text and images in such a way as to appear in an organized manner on a webpage. Every HTML page has the same basic layout. The entire document is surrounded by <HTML> tags:
...
</HTML>
The forward slash (/) at the beginning of a tag is like the closing bracket. It marks the end of the area of the document that the web designer wants the format defined by the tag to apply to. Within the <HTML> tags, there are two main sections: <HEAD> and <BODY>
<HEAD>
...
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...
</BODY>
</HTML>
The <HEAD> section contains things like the title of the window in which the webpage will appear, links to any CSS (cascading style sheets) files, any local CSS formatting, etc. The <BODY> section is where everything that will appear on the webpage goes. To title the window of a webpage, use the <TITLE> tag. The <TITLE> tag must be used within the <HEAD> section of the HTML source code as shown:
<HEAD>
<TITLE> This is the title of the window </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...
</BODY>
</HTML>
Within the area of the HTML document bounded by the <BODY> tags go all of the text and images that appear on a web page. There are several modifications that can be made to the <BODY> tag, which result in a change in the entire body of the page. For example, bgcolor="" can be added within the body tag, which would look like the following:
or
<BODY bgcolor = WHITE>
Hexidecimal Colors
FFFFFF is the hexidecimal number for the color white. BGCOLOR changes the background of the web page to the color defined (either specified by a hexidecimal number or by a fixed set of color words).
*SIDE NOTE* Hexidecimal numbers are numbers expressed in base 16 instead of base 10, like decimal numbers are. Hexidecimal numbers use digits 0-9 and the letters A-F, which stand for the numbers 10 through 15. A hexidecimal color number consists of 6 digits, RRGGBB. The first two digits is the amount of red in the color. The middle two digits is the amount of green in the color. The last two digits is the amount of blue in the color. FF is the maximum amount possible for any component color. FFFFFF is white and 000000 is black.