As mentioned in the first lesson, you have to format the color and spacing of your text using tags. Formatting it with a text editor will not work.

Start a new HTML document. Make the background color white and body text color black. Refer to lesson 1 if you need help.

Now type the following:
This is my first line. <BR>

This is the second line. <P>

This is my third line of text with a double line space proceeding it.

The <BR> and <P> tags are used to create line spaces. Without these your text will continue to “wrap” around the screen. In other words you need the <BR> and <P> tags to have paragraphs and separate lines. The <BR> is a single return, while the <P> is a double return.

Now type:

<P>

<I>

This text is italicized.

</I>

This text is not italicized.

The <I> tag is used to italicize your text. You’ll notice that the <I> tag was terminated by the </I>. Again, a forward slash in a tag is used to end a command. Not all tags, such as <P> require a termination. The best way to learn which ones do and don’t is through experience, but in short some commands are single instances while others are repeating. Repeating tags need a termination unless you wish the command to continue. For instance the single return of the <BR> tag occurs only once, so you don’t need to terminate it. Many other tags which format text and create hyper-links, however, will need some sort of termination.

Now type:

<P>

<B>

This text is bold.

</B>

This text is not bold.

The <B> tag is used to make text appear bold. Like the <I> tag it too needs to be terminated once you want the bold effect to end.

Finally, type the following:

<FONT SIZE=”12” COLOR=”GREEN”>

This text is size 12 and green.

</FONT>

<FONT SIZE=”18” COLOR=”RED”>

This text is size 18 and red.

</FONT>

You can change and specify the font color and size by using the <FONT> tag and its descriptors. Notice that it needs a termination tag, but that you needn’t place the descriptors in the tag. You will never need to place descriptors within a termination tag.

Now, save your HTML document as in lesson2 and use your browser to view it. In order to become comfortable using these tags, you may want to experiment several times with different colors, sizes, bold, and italicize effects. Once you are comfortable with these tags, move onto the next lesson.

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