HTML3 QUICK REFERENCE

Formatted by:
Peter V.Hobbs - WOKING, Surrey GU21 4JU, GB - Oct 1996

From "HTML3 Manual of Style" (1995) by Larry Aronson

To Internet Glossary

To HTML Primer
  • Introduction
  • Common Attributes
  • STYLE MARKUP
  • STRUCTURAL MARKUP
  • Block Elements
  • List Elements
  • Table Elements
  • Form Elements
  • Hypertext Links
  • Inline Images
  • Page Markup
  • CHARACTER ENTITIES
  • Markup Entities
  • Latin 1 Characters
    		•

    Introduction

    The following listing of HTML markup elements is taken from the HTML 2.0 specification, the draft HTML 3.0 specification, and the release notes from Netscape Navigator. It should be considered neither definitive nor 100% complete but, rather, a compact guide to the most useful and commonly found features of Hypertext Markup Language.

    The presentation of each markup element includes the syntax of the tag, a short description, and the attributes that can be specified with the tag. The short description takes one of two forms, for example:

    <IMG>Indicates an empty tag
    <H1>....</H1> Indicates a container or non-empty tag. The ellipse (....) stands for some portion (possibly none) of the document's content.

    Attributes take one of two forms: Either attribute="value", where value is some text enclosed in quotes, or just simply attribute without a value. In the table below, attribute may take one of the following forms:

    urlThe value is a Uniform Resource Locator
    nameThe value is a name supplied by the user
    numberThe value is a number supplied by the user
    percentThe value is a percentage (number%)
    pixelsThe value is a whole number of pixels
    nchars The value is a whole number of character positions
    textThe value is a text supplied by the user
    colorThe value is an rgb color value (#rrggbb)
    serverThe value is a server-dependent text
    x,yThe value is a coordinate measured in pixels
    [A|B|...] The value is one from a fixed set of values A,B,...

    COMMON ATTRIBUTES
    AttributeDefinition
    ALIGN Specifies the alignment of content with respect to the reader's display window. Possible values are "left", "center", "right" and "justify".
    CLASS Provides a name token that classifies the element and can be addressed in style sheets. The value is an SGML name.
    ID Provides a name for the location of the element on the page that can be referenced by anchors and other HTML elements. The value is an SGML name.
    LANG Designates the language conventions to be used with respect to quotation marks, ligatures and scan direction.

    Style Markup

     Style markup is permitted within all other HTML markup. Structural markup should be avoided within style markup. In the following descriptions of HTML markup a code is used to indicate the source: (N) means the feature is a Netscape extension, (3) means the feature is from HTML 3.0 draft specification and (D) means the feature is depreciated and has fallen from general use. Otherwise, the feature is from the HTML 2.0 specification.
    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <ABBREV>
    ....</ABBREV>    		 Abbreviation (3)
    <ACRONYM>
    ....</ACRONYM>    		 Acronym style (3)
    <B>....</B> Bold style
    <BIG>....</BIG> Big style. Display text using a larger font (3)
    <BLINK>
    ....</BLINK>    		 Blinking text (N)
    <CITE>....</CITE> Citation style. For titles of other works
    <CODE>....</CODE> Coding style. For samples of other programs
    <DEL>....</DEL> For marking deleted text as in legal documents (3)
    <DFN>....</DFN> The defining instance of a term (3)
    <EM>....</EM> Emphasis
    <FONT>....</FONT> Specifies font attributes (N) SIZE=+/-number COLOR=color
    <I>....</I> Italics style
    <INS>....</INS> For marking inserted text as in legal documents (3)
    <KBD>....</KBD> Keyboard style for text to be keyed exactly as given (D)
    <PERSON>
    ....</PERSON>    		 Marks names of people to allow them to be highlighted or extracted by indexing programs
    <Q>....</Q> Quoted text. Shown in quotation marks appropriate to the language context (3)
    <SAMP>....</SAMP> Sample style. Used for examples (D)
    <SMALL>
    ....</SMALL>    		 Small style. Display text using a smaller font (3)
    <STRIKE>
    ....</STRIKE>    		 Strikethrough style
    <STRONG>
    ....</STRONG>    		 Strong emphasis style
    <SUB>....</SUB> Subscript (N,3)
    <SUP>....</SUP> Superscript (N,3)
    <TT>....</TT> Typewriter style
    <VAR>....</VAR> Variable style. For names to be supplied by reader (D)

    Structural Markup

     With only a few exceptions, structural markup inside of other structural markup should be avoided. The exceptions are <CENTER>, <DIV>, <DD>, <DT>, <FIGURE>, <FORM>, <TH> and <DT> tags, which can be used within any other markup.

    BLOCK ELEMENTS
    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <ADDRESS>
    ....</ADDRESS>    		 Address style. Used for addresses, signatures, authorship info and so on.
    <BLOCKQUOTE>
    ...</BLOCKQUOTE>    		 For material quoted from an external source
    <BR> Line break. Starts a new line
    <CENTER>
    ....</CENTER>    		 Center page content (N)
    <DIV>....</DIV> Division. For classifying a subsection of the document (N,3)
    <FN>....</FN> Footnote (3)
    <H1>....</H1> Level 1 heading
    <H2>....</H2> Level 2 heading
    <H3>....</H3> Level 3 heading
    <H4>....</H4> Level 4 heading
    <H5>....</H5> Level 5 heading
    <H6>....</H6> Level 6 heading
    <HR> Horizontal rule. Draws a line across the page SIZE=pixels
    WIDTH=percent
    NOSHADE
    <NOTE>....</NOTE> An auxiliary paragraph (3) ROLE=name
    <PRE>....</PRE> Preformatted style WIDTH=nchars
    <P>....</P> Paragraph break
    <SCRIPT>....</SCRIPT> Used to enclose Javascript programming code.
    <TAB> Horizontal tab (3) TO=name
    INDENT=nchars

    LIST ELEMENTS
    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <DIR>....</DIR> Directory list. Used for lists typically containing short items such as filenames. Uses <LI>
    <DL>....</DL> Definition list. Used for glossaries. Uses <DT> and <DD>
    <DD>....</DD> Definition description, part of a definition list item
    <DT>....</DT> Definition term, part of a definition list item
    <LI>....</LI> List item
    <MENU>...</MENU> Menu list. Uses <LI> (D)
    <OL>....</OL> Ordered list. Uses <LI>
    <UL>....</UL> Unordered list. Uses <LI> COMPACT

    TABLE ELEMENTS
    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <TABLE>
    ....</TABLE>    		 Defines a table BORDER=pixels
    WIDTH=percent
    CELLSPACING=pixels
    CELLPADDING=pixels
    <CAPTION>
    ....</CAPTION>    		 Defines a caption to a table ALIGN=[TOP|BOTTOM]
    <TR>....</TR> Table row ALIGN=[LEFT|CENTER|RIGHT]
    VALIGN=[TOP|MIDDLE|BOTTOM]
    <TD>....</TD> Table Data cell ROWSPAN=number
    COLSPAN=number
    WIDTH=percent
    HEIGHT=pixels
    ALIGN=[LEFT|CENTER|RIGHT]
    VALIGN=[TOP|MIDDLE|BOTTOM]
    <TH>....</TH> Table Header cell. Contents bold and centred ROWSPAN=number
    COLSPAN=number
    ALIGN=[LEFT|CENTER|RIGHT]
    VALIGN=[TOP|MIDDLE|BOTTOM]

    FORM ELEMENTS

    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <FORM>
    ....</FORM>    		 Input form. For defining an area on the page to contain objects for input from the reader ACTION=url
    METHOD=[GET|POST]
    <INPUT>
    ....</INPUT>    		 Defines an input object in a form TYPE=[TEXT|CHECKBOX|RADIO
       |SUBMIT|RESET|HIDDEN]
    NAME=name
    VALUE=text
    SIZE=nchars
    MAXLENGTH=nchars
    CHECKED
    <OPTION>
    ....</OPTION>    		 Defines an item for a SELECT input object SELECTED
    <SELECT>
    ....</SELECT>    		 Selection input object, pop-up menu NAME=name
    SIZE=number
    MULTIPLE
    <TEXTAREA>
    ....</TEXTAREA>    		 Multi-line input object NAME=name
    ROWS=number
    COLS=nchars

    HYPERTEXT LINKS

    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <A>....</A> Anchor. Marks the start (HREF) or end (NAME) of a link HREF=url
    NAME=name
    TITLE=text
    <MAP>....</MAP> Provides links for Client-side image-maps NAME=name
    <AREA> Defines an area within an image-map COORDS=x,y,x,y
    SHAPE=[rect|polygon|circle]
    HREF=url
    NOHREF

    INLINE IMAGES

    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <IMG> Image. Used to place an inline image into the page. If "usemap" it gives border of 2 (default) SRC=url
    ALT=text
    ISMAP
    ALIGN=[TOP|MIDDLE|BOTTOM]
    ALIGN=[LEFT|RIGHT]
    BORDER=pixels
    HEIGHT=pixels
    WIDTH=percent
    HSPACE=pixels
    VSPACE=pixels
    USEMAP
    <FIGURE>
    ....</FIGURE>    		 Places a figure in the text (3) SRC=url
    HEIGHT=pixels
    WIDTH=pixels
    <OVERLAY> Overlays an image onto a multi-page base figure (3) SRC=url
    HEIGHT=pixels
    WIDTH=pixels
    X=pixels
    Y=pixels
    <CAPTION>
    ....</CAPTION>    		 Provides a caption for a figure (3) ALIGN=[TOP|MIDDLE|BOTTOM]
    <CREDIT>
    ....</CREDIT>    		 Provides a credit line for a figure (3)

    PAGE MARKUP
    TagDescriptionAttributes
    <BASE> Base. Provides a reference to resolve relative addressing HREF=url
    <BODY>....</BODY> Designates the content of an HTML document BGCOLOR=color
    BACKGROUND=url
    TEXT=color
    LINK=color
    ALINK=color
    VLINK=color
    <HEAD>....</HEAD> Head. Defines that part of the document containing information about the page
    <HTML>....</HTML> Defines the extent of an HTML document
    <ISINDEX> Indicates that a searchable index for the document is available on the server
    <LINK> Provides information relating the current document to other documents or entities HREF=url
    TITLE=text
    REL=server
    REV=server
    <META> Sends an http command to the server HTTP-EQUIV=server
    CONTENT=number;url
    <TITLE>
    ....</TITLE>    		 Document title. Must be in document head

    Character Entities

    Unlike markup tags and attribute names, character entities are case sensitive.

    MARKUP ENTITIES
    DefinitionHow It AppearsEntity
    less than<&lt;
    greater than>&gt;
    ampersand&&amp;
    quote"&quot;
    copyright©&copy;
    registered®&reg;
    nonbreaking space &nbsp;
    bullet/dot•&#149;
    English pound£&#163;
    any ASCII§&#167;

    LATIN 1 CHARACTERS
    Definition Upper
    case    		HTML Entity Lower
    case    		HTML Entity
    A or a, acute accent Á&Aacute; á&aacute;
    A or a, circumflex accent Â&Acirc; â&acirc;
    A or a, grave accent À&Agrave; à&agrave;
    A or a, ring Å&Aring; å&aring;
    A or a, tilde Ã&Atilde; ã&atilde;
    A or a, dieresis or umlaut mark Ä&Auml; ä&auml;
    AE or ae, dipthong (ligature) Æ&AElig; æ&aelig;
    C or c, cedilla Ç&Ccedil; ç&ccedil;
    E or e, acute accent É&Eacute; é&eacute;
    E or e, circumflex accent Ê&Ecirc; ê&ecirc;
    E or e, grave accent È&Egrave; è&egrave;
    E or e, dieresis or umlaut mark Ë&Euml; ë&euml;
    I or i, acute accent Í&Iacute; í&iacute;
    I or i, circumflex accent Î&Icirc; î&icirc;
    I or i, grave accent Ì&Igrave; ì&igrave;
    I or i, dieresis or umlaut mark Ï&Iuml; ï&iuml;
    N or n, tilde Ñ&Ntilde; ñ&ntilde;
    O or o, acute accent Ó&Oacute; ó&oacute;
    O or o, circumflex accent Ô&Ocirc; ô&ocirc;
    O or o, grave accent Ò&Ograve; ò&ograve;
    O or o, slash Ø&Oslash; ø&oslash;
    O or o, tilde Õ&Otilde; õ&otilde;
    O or o, dieresis or umlaut mark Ö&Ouml; ö&ouml;
    (Lowercase) sharp s, German (often
    substituted for the sz ligature)    		 -- ß&szlig;
    U or u, accent acute Ú&Uacute; ú&uacute;
    U or u, circumflex accent Û&Ucirc; û&ucirc;
    U or u, grave accent Ù&Ugrave; ù&ugrave;
    U or u, dieresis or umlaut mark Ü&Uuml; ü&uuml;
    Y or y, acute accent Ý&Yacute; ý&yacute;
    (Lowercase) y, dieresis or umlaut mark -- ÿ&yuml;
    Formatted by:
    Peter V.Hobbs - WOKING, Surrey GU21 4JU, GB - Oct 1996