HTML QUICK REFERENCE
HTML is composed of a set of elements that define a document and guide
its display. An HTML element may include a name, some attributes and
some text or hypertext, and will appear in an HTML document as
text text , or just
For example:
My Useful Document
and
text
An HTML document is composed of a single element:
. . .
that is, in turn, composed of head and body elements:
. . .
and
. . .
To allow older HTML documents to remain readable, , , and
are actually optional within HTML documents.
Elements usually placed in the head element
Specify index file
. . .
Specify document title
Set a variable value. Attribute: variable name
Specify relationships to other documents. Attributes: same as
Anchor below
Specify the name of the file in which the current document is
stored. This is useful when link references within the document
do not include full pathnames (i.e., are partially qualified).
Elements usually placed in the body element
The following sections describe elements that can be used in the body
of the document.
Text Elements
The end of a paragraph that will be formatted before it is
displayed on the screen.
. . .
Identifies text that has already been formatted (preformatted)
by some other system and must be displayed as is. Preformatted
text may include embedded tags, but not all tag types are
permitted.
. . .
Example computer listing; embedded tags will be ignored, but
embedded tabs will work
<blockquote> . . . </blockquote>
Include a section of text quoted from some other source.
Hyperlinks or Anchors
<a name="target_anchor_name"> . . . </a>
Define a target location in a document
<a href="#anchor_name"> . . . </a>
Link to a location in the same file
<a href="URL"> . . . </a>
Link to another file
<a href="URL#target_string"> . . . </a>
Link to a target location in another file
<a href="URL?search_word+search_word"> . . . </a>
Send a search string to a server. Different servers might
interpret the search string differently. In the case of word
oriented search engines, multiple search words might be
specified by separating individual words with a plus sign (+).
Required attributes for anchors: one of name or href.
Optional attributes: rel, rev, urn, title, methods. Note that not all
methods are valid attributes to an anchor.
The structure of a Universal Resource Locator (URL) is similar to:
resource_type://host.domain:port/pathname
where the possible resource types include: file, http, news, gopher,
telnet, and wais, and the colon followed by the TCP port number is
optional. A more complete description is presented in
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html
Headers
<h1> . . . </h1> Most prominent header
<h2> . . . </h2>
<h3> . . . </h2>
<h4> . . . </h4>
<h5> . . . </h5>
<h6> . . . </h6> Least prominent header
Logical Styles
<em> . . . </em>
Emphasis
<strong> . . . </strong>
Stronger emphasis
<code> . . . </code>
Display an HTML directive
<samp> . . . </samp>
Include sample output
<kbd> . . . </kbd>
Display a keyboard key
<var> . . . </var>
Define a variable
<dfn> . . . </dfn>
Display a definition
<cite> . . . </cite>
Display a citation
Physical Styles
<b> . . . </b>
Bold font
<i> . . . </i>
Italics
<u> . . . </u>
Underline
<tt> . . . </tt>
Typewriter font
Definition list/glossary: <dl>
<dl>
<dt> First term to be defined
<dd> Definition of first term
<dt> Next term to be defined
<dd> Next definition
</dl>
The <dl> attribute compact can be used to generate a definition list
requiring less space.
Present an unordered list: <ul>
<ul>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</ul>
Present an ordered list: <ol>
<ol>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</ol>
Present an interactive menu: <menu>
<menu>
<li> First item in the menu
<li> Next item
</menu>
Present a directory list of items: <dir>
<dir>
<li> First item in the list
<li> Second item in the list
<li> Next item in the list
</dir>
Items should be less than 20 characters long.
Entities
&keyword;
Display a particular character identified by a special keyword.
For example the entity & specifies the ampersand ( & ), and
the entity < specifies the less than ( < ) character. Note
that the semicolon following the keyword is required, and the
keyword must be one from the list presented in:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Entities.html
-or-
The ISO LATIN I character set
&#ascii_equivalent;
Use a character literally. Again note that the semicolon
following the ASCII numeric value is required.
Miscellaneous
<!-- text -->
Place a comment in the HTML source
<address> . . . </address>
Present address information
<img src="URL" alt="Alternate Text">
Include a graphic image. "URL" is the location and filename of
the image file. The "alt" attribute allows a text string to be
put in place of the image in clients that cannot display
images.
Other possible attributes are : ismap, and align.
The argument for align can be one of top, middle, or bottom.
<br>
Forces a line break immediately and retains the same style.
<hr>
Places a horizontal rule or separator between sections of text.
<link rev="RELATIONSHIP" rel="RELATIONSHIP" href="URL">
The link tag allows you to define a relation ship between the
"URL" specified and the HTML file. The "rel" attribute
specifies the relationship between the HTML file and the "URL".
The "rev" attribute specifies the relationship between the
"URL" and the HTML file. The only currently implemented link
relation ship is rev="made". <link rev="made" href="URL">
allows the file maker or owner to be specified in the link
"URL". The most common use of this is as follows:
<link rev="made" href="mailto:EMAIL_ADDRESS@HOST">
Additional Information
For a tutorial introduction to HTML see:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/html-primer.html.
For reference information on HTML see:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/MarkUp.html
Michael Grobe
Academic Computing Services
The University of Kansas
grobe@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu