Understanding HTML

Part 2 - Text Layout, PC Plus Magazine, Issue 145. Text is still the bedrock of most web pages, and HTML has some powerful features for managing text styles and layouts. Even better, most of them are compatible with every browser since Navigator 1.0. Paul Stephens

8 Steps

Reference

Microsoft

Netscape

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HTML was developed to enable scientific and academic reports to be published on the Internet, so it's not surprising that it has a rich set of text-handling features, including named styles and auto-numbering, hierarchic lists. Recent enhancements, such as cascading style sheets, have given HTML's layout capabilities a major boost. However the language's original layout features are capable of producing excellent page layouts, and are compatible with virtually all browsers. While most WYSIWYG design tools will generate the HTML layout code for you, it's still worth understanding the options and obscure tags which many WYSIWYG tools leave out.

samp1.gif (3965 bytes) Check out this month's 8-step example guide, covering paragraph styles, such as the <H1> to <H6> headings, and inline styles, including the all-important <FONT>.

I haven't attempted to give a detailed reference to the tags and their attributes, partly because there's too much to include, but mainly because it's already been done in really excellent fashion by Microsoft in its Internet Client SDK (note the new address) and, only a bit less excellently, in Netscape's HTML Tag Reference .It's worth downloading both these free, HTML-based resources and keeping them on your PC for instant reference.

Until next month, happy authoring!

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