# HTML Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 5, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053 "2005-03-05T06:57:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/1 "2005-03-05T06:57:06Z")

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Okay, I’m just starting to learn HTML and build a website (well, page, for now) without one of those “let’s make it easy for the dumb people” editor things. What none of the sources I’ve been looking at, though, tells me how to change the color of the text I’m working with. I’ve got the background I want, I’ve got the font, size, etc. I want, just not the color. Can you change text color writing HTML, or do I have to do something completely different?

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**Author:** ![riko-not-so-suave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@riko-not-so-suave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/riko-not-so-suave)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/2 "2005-03-05T07:03:03Z")

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you can control the font size face color and such through the font tags

\<font face=“verdana” size=“2” color="#000000"\> blah blah blah\</font\>

color="#000000" can also go as the colour name which in this case would be black

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/3 "2005-03-05T07:04:41Z")

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Ah. That seems incredibly simple, I haven’t any idea why it didn’t dawn on me to do that. Wow, do I feel embarassed. Thank you, **riko**.

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**Author:** ![riko-not-so-suave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@riko-not-so-suave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/riko-not-so-suave)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/4 "2005-03-05T07:05:21Z")

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I forgot to mention you can also control it through the body tag

\<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000CC" vlink="#990066" alink="#000000"\>

text = the text colour for all the text on that page unless otherwise specified with the font tag

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**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/5 "2005-03-05T07:58:09Z")

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Note that – in an ideal world – HTML is supposed to be for markup only. Formatting and layout stuff, like colors, sizes, and typefaces, should be done with style sheets (or inline styles) instead. The \<font\> tag is generally frowned upon in this day and age. To wit:

\<html\>  
\<head\>  
\<title\>Style Example\</title\>  
\<style type=“text/css”\>  
.fancytext { font-family: “Arial Bold”; font-size: 200%; border: thin green dashed; font-style: bold; color: red; }  
\</style\>

\<body\>  
\<p class=“fancytext”\>Don’t use FONT tags, use styles!\</p\>  
\</body\>  
\</html\>

Of course, learning style sheets is a fairly big effort in itself, but it pays off in letting you totally revamp the look of your web site – from 1 page to 1,000 pages – just by changing one file.

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**Author:** ![Ninja\_Pizza\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f04885/32.png) [@Ninja\_Pizza\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ninja_Pizza_Guy)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/6 "2005-03-05T17:49:27Z")

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If you do want to look into CSS, [this](http://www.csszengarden.com/) is a helpful site.

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/7 "2005-03-05T18:21:53Z")

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> [@Ninja Pizza Guy](#):
>
> If you do want to look into CSS, [this](http://www.csszengarden.com/) is a helpful site.

One of the best sites to learn all things HTML and CSS is [http://www.w3schools.com/](http://www.w3schools.com/)

CSS Zen Garden is great, but I’m not sure subjecting a newbie to it is wise. 🙂

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**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/8 "2005-03-05T18:24:52Z")

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Another [very helpful site](http://www.htmlgoodies.com/) that focuses on HTML, but also includes CSS, Javascript, etc.

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**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/9 "2005-03-05T18:41:58Z")

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My website has an HTML tutorial  
www.1728.htm/web1.htm  
and if you go to this menu:  
[http://www.1728.com/indexweb.htm](http://www.1728.com/indexweb.htm)  
you’ll find a menu for font types, font colors and special characters (things like ™).  
Please give it a try.

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**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/10 "2005-03-05T18:43:57Z")

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Sorry that tutorial address is:  
[www.1728.com/web1.htm](http://www.1728.com/web1.htm)

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**Author:** ![Ninja\_Pizza\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f04885/32.png) [@Ninja\_Pizza\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ninja_Pizza_Guy)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/11 "2005-03-05T19:13:46Z")

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> [@Duckster](#):
>
> One of the best sites to learn all things HTML and CSS is [http://www.w3schools.com/](http://www.w3schools.com/)
> 
> CSS Zen Garden is great, but I’m not sure subjecting a newbie to it is wise. 🙂

You are correct, sir. I had somehow managed to forget w3schools, which is odd since I still use their site at least once a week. [www.visibone.com](http://www.visibone.com) is also good, and I bought one of their HTML/JavaScript/CSS quick references. I just wish I’d had the sense to buy it when I was still in school.

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/12 "2005-03-05T21:07:01Z")

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w3schools was the site I was using, oddly enough. Maybe they did mention changing the font color, and I totally looked over it. I dunno.

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**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/13 "2005-03-05T22:01:33Z")

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**jimSox5**  
That’s the reason I suggested the tutorial on my website. It is _very_ basic and there’s not a whole bunch of links and unrelated items such as the ones found at:  
[http://www.w3schools.com/html/html\_www.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_www.asp)  
To me, if someone wants to learn HTML, just talk about … HTML !!!  
(Instead of starting out by defining a webmaster, the world wide web, etc.)

Yes, that website is a _tremendous_ resource but there are times when you’d just prefer brevity.  
I am not knocking that website nor do I think my tutorial is the pinnacle of HTML wisdom. I just feel my tutorial is probably one of the more succinct to be found on the Internet. (In My Humble Opinion). 😃  
Oh and it’s free and NO advertising.

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**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/14 "2005-03-05T23:23:29Z")

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> [@Duckster](#):
>
> CSS Zen Garden is great, but I’m not sure subjecting a newbie to it is wise. 🙂

It’s great in the “Look at how you can _totally revamp_ this web page with **one** change!” sorta way. I can’t wait for the book.

But yeah, using it as a teaching tool for newbies is like teaching Swimming 101 by throwing someone over Niagara Falls. 😃

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/15 "2005-03-06T23:31:58Z")

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Okay, this has all been very helpful, but can somebody tell me why this:  
\<p\>\<a href="[http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/aboutus.html](http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/aboutus.html)\>About Us\</a\>\</p\>  
\<p\>\<a href="[http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/playlist.html](http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/playlist.html)\>Recent Playlists\</a\>\</p\>  
\<p\>\<a href="[http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/listen.html](http://www.geocities.com/arsonshow/listen.html)\>Listen to Past Shows\</a\>\</p\>

Only gives me two links? (To “Recent Playlists” and “Listen to Past Shows”)

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/16 "2005-03-06T23:33:47Z")

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Nevermind that post, I just figured it out. Stupid quotation marks. I can’t believe I overlooked that for so long until I posted it on here.

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**Author:** ![potatoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@potatoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/potatoes)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/17 "2005-03-07T00:33:55Z")

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If you want a website that has the basics of html, well [http://www.htmlbasix.com](http://www.htmlbasix.com)

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**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/18 "2005-03-09T04:53:09Z")

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New question, same topic. I’ve learned out to write a table, now is there any way for me to put three tables side by side without actually making it one big table? If that doesn’t make any sense, visit the link and see if that helps.

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/html-question/293053/19 "2005-03-09T05:01:03Z")

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> [@JimSox5](#):
>
> New question, same topic. I’ve learned out to write a table, now is there any way for me to put three tables side by side without actually making it one big table? If that doesn’t make any sense, visit the link and see if that helps.

Nest the three tables in a larger table of only one row and three columns.

Better yet, use CSS.

Just be aware that you don’t want a horizontal scroll.