I have been learning some basic HTML code to improve the quality of some of the websites I manage and thought posting what I have learnt would be a useful resource for others who are getting into the world of HTML code.

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The Horizontal Divider line

To produce a horizontal break line across the entire page type <hr />. This is a very simple and effective way to produce a break in an article. I am going to use it between each section on this page to make it easier to read.

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The basics of opening and closing HTML code….

For HTML to work properly is is important to remember to open and close codes as required.
For example To make a section of text bold…..
<strong> before the text you would like to make bold.
</strong> at the end of the text you want to  make bold.

If you type the following into a html editor…
<strong>This is bold text</strong> followed by normal text.

the web page will display the following….
This is bold text followed by normal text.

The important point to remember is that you need to close the statement when you no longer need the text to be bold, this is important in all HTML code as nearly every piece of code needs to be opened and closed.

<strong> placed before the text to be made bold. (opened the code)
</strong> placed after the text to be made bold.  (closes the code)

If you forget to close the code everything after the code will be effected by it, for example if you had a bold first word in a paragraph and forgot to close the code, everything else in the document would be bold. (its a very easy mistake to make, especially using the link code)

Links to pages or other websites

Links are a little more difficult  to master, but once you know the basics and remember to follow the rules above about closing codes, everything will work fine.

For example to produce a link to my home page with the text “time Web Site” the code would look like this…
<a href=”http://www.whitehorsecad.com”>White Horse CAD </a>

and the link would look like this…..
White Horse CAD

lets break that down a little…..

<a href=”FULL WEB ADDRESS”>
is the address of the web page, it must be typed between “” and contain http://www for it to work correctly.

White Horse CAD </a>
is the text you would like on your website (much tidier than using the full url)

Notice I closed the code with </a> if i had not, then the rest of the document after <a href=”FULL WEB ADDRESS”> would become a link.

Some basic codes that follow the same rules laid out above…

<i> or <em> = Italic Text
<b> or <strong> = Bold Text 
<big> = Bigger Text 

As you can see, the codes are simple and easy to remember and with a little bit of practice are really easy to pick up.

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