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
A lot of text here.
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 restricted to 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)
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. Attribute: width
. . .
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
Required attributes for anchors: one of name or href.
Optional attributes: rel, rev, urn, title, methods.
The structure of a Universal Resource Location (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
&#ascii_equivalent;
Use a character literally. Again note that the semicolon following the ASCII numeric value
is required.
<!-- text >
Place a comment in the HTML source
<address> . . . </address>
Present address information
Elements currently under development
<img src="URL"> . . . </img>
Include a graphic image. Implemented by NCSA Mosaic only
Additional Information
For a tutorial introduction to HTML see: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/html-primer.html.
For a 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