An HTML tag is a special piece of text that tells a web browser how to display things to the reader. HTML tags can be used to change font size and color, make text bold or italic, add pictures to your text, add lists, and many other things.
All HTML tags begin with the character "<" and end with the character ">". What comes between these two characters tells the tag what to do. When a web browser reads an HTML tag, it does not display it – it only reads it as instructions.
Some of the HTML tags Open Diary members find useful are:
<B> - bold text
<I> - italic text
<U> - underline text
<FONT SIZE=x> - change the size of your text
<FONT COLOR=xxxxxx> - change the color of your text
<FONT NAME=xxxxxxx> - change the font of your text
<IMG SRC=xxxxxx> - insert a picture in your text
Please note that all of these tags also use an closing tag, except for the image tag. An ending tag is just a repeat of the tag with a "/" in it. For instance, </B> is the closing for the <B> tag. The closing tag tells the browser to stop applying whatever characteristic the tag was for.
Examples
This tag will make <B>some bold text</B>
will display in the browser as:
This tag will make some bold text
Notice how the HTML tags are not displayed, but they change the appearance of the text.
The italic and underline tags work the same way:
here is <I>some italic text</I> that is not <U>underlined</U>
will appear as:
Here is some italic text that is not underlined
Font size and color work a little differently, because you have to give them a value. The required values are a number for size, and a name or RGB code for color. For instance, to make large red text, you would type:
This is <FONT SIZE=4 COLOR=red>large red text</FONT>
which would display as:
This is large red text
You can also change the font used for your text with the NAME value. For red text in the Comic Sans MS font, you would type:
This text is <FONT COLOR=blue NAME="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4>blue comic text</FONT>
which would display as:
This text is blue comic text
Finally, you can use HTML tags to insert pictures in your entries and diary description. For more information on how to do this, please see Adding Pictures to Your Entry and Adding Pictures to Your Diary Description.