How to Use the Head Section
In the previous chapter, you took a brief look at the <HEAD> section of an HTML document. This section of your HTML
document is relatively small, but it conveys some very important information about your document to Web browsers and servers.
Tip Sheet
* The title tag is used extensively by Web search engines; search engines use the text inside a title tag as a way to determine
the actual contents of your page. So make sure your title is descriptive.
* Don't type any extra text in between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags. In most cases, the only line you'll insert
between those two tags is your document title.
1. Open a new document in Notepad and type <HTML>. To begin the head section, insert an opening tag into your HTML
document by typing <HEAD>.
2. The only element required in the head section is the Title of your document. Your title should be short enough to fit
in the title bar of a typical browser window, but descriptive enough to explain what your HTML document contains.
3. Insert a title tag within the head section by typing <TITLE>, followed by the actual title of your document. In
this example, we'll name this document HTML: Easier Than We Thought. Go ahead and type in that title, then close the tag by
typing </TITLE> on the same line.
4. Close the head section by typing </HEAD> on the line below the title line.
How to Use the Body Section
The body section of your HTML document contains most of the text, graphics, hypertext links, and other information that
will appear on the page. All of your HTML formatting tags, which describe the content and appearance of your document, are
placed in the body section. These tags will be explained in detail in the next two chapters.
Tip Sheet
* You can use a number of enhancements to the <BODY> tag to control text colors and add background graphics to your
HTML document. You'll learn these cool tricks in Chapter 9 "Advanced Graphics Techniques."
* Sometimes it's easier to type both the <BODY> and </BODY> tags on separate lines right away, and then fill
in the rest of your HTML document between them.
1. Insert the opening body tag by typing <BODY> on a new line in your document. Make sure that the new body tag follows
the end of the head section of your document.
2. Following the <BODY> tag, begin entering the actual text of your HTML document. For this example, we'll just insert
a simple sentence. Type HTML is much easier than I thought.
3. Close the body section of your document by typing </BODY> on a new line. Make sure that this closing tag appears
before the </HTML> tag at the very bottom of your document.
4. Here's what your HTML document looks like so far when viewed with Netscape. Notice the placement of the document title
and the body text.
5. At this point, you should save your file in Notepad. Make sure you save it with an extension of .htm or.html (it doesn't
matter which-all browsers will handle both types). Keep this file open, because you'll be adding to it in the next lesson.
How to Use Headings
Headings are used in HTML documents to indicate different sections. There are six different Heading sizes, which range
from very large to very small (smaller than the default body text). You should use headings judiciously, keeping them short
and concise. The most common use for a heading is as the first line of a home page. In essence, it becomes a headline for
your document.
Tip Sheet
* Headings are an excellent way to break up large amounts of text into smaller, digestible sections. But be careful not
to overuse heading tags, or they'll make your document appear confusing.
* Think of heading tags as headlines. Generally, you'll only have one big headline for your document and a few smaller
subheads to break the document into smaller sections.
* It's a good idea to repeat the document title as a Level 1 Heading at the very top of your page. This lets your readers
know the title of the document without having to look at the title bar of their browsers.
* Headings can be compared in many ways to outlines. When structuring your documents with headings, use the same type of
heading for elements of equal importance.
1. To insert a heading into your document, place an opening tag anywhere in the body section. A heading tag follows the
format of <Hx>, where x is a number from 1 to 6, indicating the size from largest to smallest. To enter a level 1 heading,
which is the largest, type <H1>.
2. Any text you enter immediately after the <H1> tag will be displayed in large bold type by a Web browser.
3. Close the heading tag by typing </H1>.
4. You can experiment with different sized headings by changing the number of the heading tag to any value between 1 and
6. The result will look something like this.
How to Use the Paragraph Tag
One of the most commonly used tags in HTML is the paragraph marker, which is used to break apart blocks of text into separate
paragraphs. Any formatting that you perform in Notepad, such as placing carriage returns, extra spaces, or tab stops, will
be ignored by Web browsers. The only way to indicate separate paragraphs is by using the paragraph marker. Unfortunately,
despite its simplicity, the paragraph marker is also one of the most misunderstood tags in HTML.
Tip Sheet
* Rememember that in HTML 3.2, paragraph tags are considered to be containers of text. That means each paragraph should
have a starting <P> tag and an ending </P> tag. Early versions of HTML used the <P> tag as a paragraph separator.
* Paragraphs can contain more than plain text. You can place images, hyperlinks, and many other HTML elements inside paragraphs
as well. You'll learn more about these elements in later chapters.
1. The most important thing to remember about the paragraph tag is that it marks the beginning of a paragraph, not the
end. The original HTML standard used the paragraph marker differently, which has led to some confusion.
2. To insert a new paragraph, type <P> anywhere in the body section of your HTML document. This will tell the browser
to insert a line space and start a new paragraph.
3. Enter the text of the paragraph after this tag. Remember that any carriage returns or line breaks you enter into Notepad
will be ignored by a Web browser. The browser will continue to treat the text as part of the current paragraph until it sees
another <P> tag.
4. You can indicate the end of a paragraph by typing </P>. However, this tag is optional. The end of the current
paragraph is implied whenever a new paragraph marker is found by a browser.
5. Continue entering new paragraphs of text, using the <P> tag to indicate the beginning of each.
How to Use Special Characters
By now, you may have noticed a potential problem with HTML. All of the markup tags are indicated by left and right angle
brackets (greater-than and less-than symbols). These characters are reserved by HTML for use with tags. What happens when
you want to include one of these characters in your text?
That's a good question, and the problem isn't limited to just those two symbols. A number of characters can't be typed
directly into the body text HTML, including many foreign language symbols. Fortunately, HTML provides a solution through the
use of character entities. By using special codes, HTML can display all of the characters in the ISO-Latin-1 (ISO 8859) character
set. HTML 3.2 also includes support for many mathematical symbols.
Tip Sheet
* For a complete list of named and numbered character entities available, see the Appendix.
* One of the most commonly used special characters is the copyright symbol (©). Placing a copyright statement
at the bottom of your Web document is a good idea and helps to remind your readers that your material may not be reproduced
without your permission.
* Netscape also supports named character entities for the copyright and registered trademark symbols (© and ®).
However, because these names are not standard HTML, not all browsers support them. Because the correct display of these symbols
is important, it's a much better idea to use the numbered character entities for these symbols.
1. Locate your cursor at the position in the document where the character entity for the special character is to be placed.
2. A character entity begins with an ampersand (&), followed by the code, and ends with a semicolon. To place a double
quote in your document, for example, type ".
3. Other common character entities for characters that are reserved for HTML tags are < for the less-than symbol;
> for the greater-than symbol; and & for the ampersand. Note that these named character entities are case-sensitive.
4. You can also use named character entities for many foreign language symbols. For example, to create the umlaut used
in the German phrase, über alles, you would type in über alles.
5. In addition to named character entities, you can use numbered character entities. HTML uses a subset of the ISO 8859/1
8-bit character set, and several characters, including the copyright symbol, trademark symbol, and mathematical symbols, are
available when referenced by their numbered character entity.
6. To insert a numerical character entity into HTML, type an ampersand, followed by a pound sign, the number of the character
and a semicolon. For example, to enter the registered trademark symbol into your document, you would type ®. You
can find a partial list of numerical character entities in the Appendix.
