HTML Authoring
Writing for the World Wide Web

Author: Rachel Churcher.

Worksheet 4

OTHER COMMANDS IN HTML

This worksheet will demonstrate how to change the colours of text and backgrounds, how to use lists and how to use the "align" command. You can either complete this worksheet by writing the HTML in Notepad, or by using the Netscape Editor ("File" - > "New Document" -> "Blank"). If you use the Editor, make sure you look at the source document for the page. Use the Editor like a word processor and experiment with the different menus to control colours, lists and text alignment.

COLOUR

You can change the colours of the background and the text in your web page.
Open Notepad.
Create a new HTML document using the following basic HTML:
Save it as "page2.htm"
If you loaded this page into Netscape it would look similar to your first page, with black writing on a white background.

BACKGROUND COLOUR

To change the background colour of the page you use the "bgcolor" command (note American spelling). This is an attribute of the <BODY> command which means that it forms part of the <BODY> tag, and is written <BODY BGCOLOR=colour>. There is no </TAG> for attributes - they are assumed to end when the main command ends:
Colours are specified using 6 figure Hexadecimal codes. The first two digits specify the level of red, the third and fourth specify the level of green and the fifth and sixth specify the level of blue:
The colour values range from "00" to "FF", with the six highest values represented by the letters A-F. The table below shows some examples of colours and their codes:

Black #000000

White #FFFFFF

Bright red #FF0000

Bright green #00FF00

Bright blue #0000FF

Grey #C0C0C0

Yellow #FFFF00

Purple #800080

Dark brown #300000

Cream #FFFFF0
Return to your HTML file in Notepad. Replace the <BODY> tag with <BODY BGCOLOR="#rrggbb"> where the code indicates your choice of colour. Save the file and close Notepad.
Open Netscape and use the "File" -> "Open Document in Browser" command to open "page2.htm" Your second page should appear with a new background colour.

TEXT COLOUR

Open Notepad and return to your HTML document "page2.htm".
The command to change the colour of your text is another attribute of the <BODY> tag:
Add the "text" attribute to the <BODY> tag with an appropriate colour code.
Save the document, close Notepad and open the file in Netscape to see your text colour.

LISTS

You can put bulleted lists on your web page using the <UL>...</UL> tags.
Open your HTML document in Notepad. Just before the </BODY> tag add the following:
Save your document, close Notepad and open the document in Netscape. You should see a bulleted list at the end of your page.
Note that the whole list is enclosed by the tags <UL>....</UL> (Unordered list), and each bullet is preceded by <LI> (List item). Like the tag <P>, </LI> is implied by the new <LI> tag and therefore not required.
Try replacing the <UL>.... </UL> tags with <OL> and </OL> (Ordered List) and see what happens to your list.

ALIGNMENT

Text can be aligned to the left, the right or the centre of your page. The "Align" command is an attribute of the <P> tag, and appears as:
Open "page2.htm" on notepad and experiment with the align attribute. You could add new paragraphs, or align the text in the existing document. View the changes in Netscape.

HTML Index
Worksheet 1
Worksheet 2
Worksheet 3
Worksheet 4
Worksheet 5
Worksheet 6
Feedback

Black	#000000
White	#FFFFFF
Bright red	#FF0000
Bright green	#00FF00
Bright blue	#0000FF
Grey	#C0C0C0
Yellow	#FFFF00
Purple	#800080
Dark brown	#300000
Cream	#FFFFF0