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HTML uses tags to modify everything on the page. A tag is a simple HTML command enclosed in < and > characters. Most tags must be "opened" and "closed". You close a tag by putting a / before the command. Here's an example:

<BLINK>All this will be blinking.</BLINK>This will not.
All this will be blinking.This will not.

In this case, we have used the blink tag, which causes the text to blink (obviously). When the browser reads the <BLINK> tag, it will make everything blink until you tell it to stop using the </BLINK> tag. So if you forget to close your blink tag, the rest of the page will be filled with annoying blinking text. Think of tags as a sort of quotation mark. You must have quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quote, and everything in between is part of the quote. In the same way, everything between the HTML tags is part of that command.

HTML tags can be nested to. Take this for instance:

<BLINK><CENTER>Blinking text is annoying</CENTER></BLINK>

Just remember to try and keep the tags in order. Whatever tag you opened last, you need to close first. In other words, don't do this:

<BLINK><CENTER>All this will be blinking.</BLINK></CENTER>

You may be wondering, do I have to put my tags in all capitals? No, you sure don't. But, I prefer to keep them all caps, as do many others. The reason is simple. When you are looking at an HTML file, if the tags are in all caps, they stand out more. It makes it easier to pick out the HTML tags and see what's going on. I find it makes it easier to edit files.

Tags can also have properties. Take the font tag, for example:

<FONT SIZE=+2>This font is bigger</FONT>
This font is bigger

Here the size is a property of the font tag. We'll get into different properties of tags later on, for now just be aware that some tags have several options you can set. Options always go after the HTML command in the opening tag. If you are using more than one option in a tag, the order is irrelevant. Also, most options have a default value that will be used if nothing is declared. This means you do not have to use all options, only the ones that you want different from the default value.

Okay, now let's take a look at creating your first page.

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Next: Lesson 2-Your First Page

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