Surprisingly enough, creating your About site doesn't necessarily require a thorough knowledge of HTML. As you may or may not know, HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, a programming language that transmits data via coded tags and attributes. It is the backbone to creating a web page - an Internet browser translates the code and presents it in a browser window. While your Homepage is created with the GCC tool we provide (which has it's own code - please refer to the link listed below!), we suggest you learn a few basic HTML tags to help you in creating your articles and features. It's advised that you use an HTML editor in publishing your articles. An editor codes the page automatically. However, it's good to understand how HTML works in relation to what you produce. Listed below are some basic HTML tags that will be, at one time or another, implemented in your web page. If you would like more information, visit our HTML About Guide at:

http://html.about.com/compute/html/mbody.htm

We have also created a modified version of HTML used to stylize pages in the GCC. For more details, visit HTML and GCC Codes at:

http://orientation.about.com/about/orientation/library/blhtmlgcc.htm

Remember not to change any of About's HTML code!

In general, HTML uses tags and attributes to create a page. Your content must be written within these tags. Each open tag, <tag>, must be closed with it's respective end tag,</tag>.

I) Paragraph Breaks vs Line Breaks

A paragraph break, designated by the tag <p>, allows you to skip a line on a page. A line break, designated by <br>, moves your content to the following line. When you wish to end a paragraph break, close the tag with </p>. To end a line break, close the tag with </br>. For example:

I am a <p> Mentor for About </p>.
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I am a

Mentor for About.

This process is called <br>Orientation</br>.
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This process is called
Orientation.

II) Bold, Italics and Underline

You can stylize your text by applying tags to your content. The most popular techniques are bold, italics and underline. We recommend using Bold and Italics to emphasize titles or important information. Underlines can be mistaken for a hyperlink, and you don't want to confuse your readers!

Bold = <b>, </b>
Italics = <i>, </i>
Underline = <u>, </u>

For example:

I like <b>this</b>. I <i>really</i> like this <u>a lot</u>.
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I like this. I really like this a lot.

III) Links

Links provide a user to visit other sections of a site. You can link to external websites or your own content. Linking is done with an anchor tag followed by href (hypertext reference), an 'equals' sign, (which specifies the rule 'is') and the URL you wish to point to. The URL must be in quotes. You must close the tag after this point with the 'greater than' key on your keyboard. The text that will identify the link can be included now. When you are finished, close the anchor tag, </a>. For example:

Welcome to <a href = "http://www.about.com"> About!</a>
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Welcome to About!

To link to pages within your own site, the full URL is not needed. For example:

Visit <a href ="/library/weekly/blphotos.htm">my photos</a> page!
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Visit my photos page!

For more information on linking within your site, have a look at http://orientation.about.com/about/orientation/library/bllinking.htm

IV) Email

Creating an email link is similar to creating a regular link. The only difference is to substitute "mailto:" where the URL is. The email address is entered after the colons, within the quotes. Close with the </a> tag. For example:

Email me at <a href = "mailto:orientation@about-inc.com">orientation@about-inc.com</a>
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Email me at orientation@about-inc.com

V) Keywords and Meta Tags

Please refer to Meta Tags in the "Subjects" list on the orientation homepage or go to:

http://orientation.about.com/about/orientation/cs/metatags/index.htm

Find descriptions, how-to's and images on how to add meta tags and key words to your site!

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