Lesson #07 Basic Tags: Playing With Text
Written By C-Pimp

I've said this before and I'll say it again:
HTML isn't a hard language to learn, all it takes is a bit of practice!

We are getting into the really good stuff now with a look at the basic HTML tags. The next series of lessons, including this one, will focus on shedding some light on various HTML tags and how they can be applied to your web pages. I'm going to do my best to lay it all out in simple terms. If you feel confused at any time for whatever reason, rest assured it will all come together with each lesson!

We're kicking things off with a look at some simple tags that can be used to enhance and format text within your HTML document. How to give your text some cozy effects and attributes!

All the text that makes up an HTML document MUST be placed between the BODY tags. If you leave your text as is, your surfers will see the text in it's default format. You can spice up your text with the help of the following HTML tags:

<B>

The Bold Tag. Text that follows this tag will appear in bold. You can end the BOLD function with it's end tag: </B>

<I>

The Italic Tag. Text that follows this tag will appear in italic. You can end the ITALIC function with it's end tag: </I>

<U>

The Underline Tag. Text that follows this tag will appear underlined. You can end the UNDERLINE function with it's end tag: </U>

The following three examples display how these tags can be used to enhance your text. All of the following must take place between your BODY tags (See Lesson #5) or they will NOT work properly.

<B>Your Text Goes Here</B>

<I>I Love Sweet Ass</I>

<U>Need to Pay The Bills</U>

You can also use the multiple tag combinations to get the effect that you're looking for. Here are a few examples of what I like to call "Tag-Team" tags (See Lesson #04) and how they can be used together.

<B><U>Where is She Going?</U></B>

<B><I>An Apple a Day</I></B>

<I><U>Need to Get Paid</U></I>

Always remember to place the appropriate END tag for each one of the tags mentioned above. Also make sure to include the front slash / in the end tag or all text after it will be affected by your initial START tag. I'll be stressing this quite a bit - just one of those things you have to keep in mind at all time!

"Don't Forget The End Tags!" :)

In closing, here is a quick sample HTML page I made using the Bold, Italic and Underline tags covered in this lesson. You can open up the page by clicking the link below. Once the page is loaded, check THE SOURCE (Lesson #06) to see exactly how I put it together!