How to Use Markup Tags
The use of markup tags is what separates HTML from plain old text. Markup tags are used extensively in HTML, and
they provide ways to control text formatting, create links to other documents, and even incorporate images and sounds.
In short, markup tags are the key to making HTML pages work.
Tip Sheet
- For a complete list of markup tags available in HTML 3.2, refer to the Appendix in this book.
Markup tags are not casesensitive. For example, the body element tag (which you’ll learn about in the next lesson)
can be typed as <BODY>, <body>, or even <BoDy>. - Open a new file in Notepad and type in the words a bold new frontier. In this example, we’ll make this text
appear in boldface type. - HTML markup tags are easy to create. They consist of a left angle bracket, the name of the tag, and a right angle
bracket. The left and right angle brackets are also known to some as less-than and greater-than symbols. To start
a boldface markup tag, type <B> where you’d like the boldface type to begin. - Locate the place where you’d like the boldface to stop. At this point, you need to create an ending tag for the
boldface type. An ending tag looks just like a starting tag, except it is preceded by a forward slash character (/).
To mark the end of the boldface tag, type </B>. - When viewed with a Web browser, the text between the <B> and </B> tags will appear in boldface.
- Almost every markup tag in HTML requires both a starting tag and an ending tag. One notable exception is the
paragraph marker, <P>, which does not require an ending </P> tag.