Formatting the Word

"Remember what I said about tags?" Rayzer asked me as I climbed up on his shoulder. "Well there are tags that tell the web browser how to format the words."

"Oh yeah," I said as I made myself comfortable. "I've been meaning to ask you. What is formatting?" I was pleased to see that he had another bag of peanuts in his shirt pocket.

"Formatting is when you make a document, or in this case a web page, show itself in special ways." He typed <H2>This is the title heading H2 for Sections</H2> on the screen while I swiped a peanut. "Now that is the formatting in HTML that shows this:"

This is a title heading H2 for Sections

"You can make it really really big," He typed <H1>This is a title heading</H1>. "See how it's even bigger. That's if you have a chapter heading."

This is a title heading H1 for Chapters

I thought about that for a minute. "So a chapter is bigger than a section, like when you outline a book?" Rayzer nodded his head vigorously in encouragement, almost knocking me off his shoulder. "If <H2> is smaller than <H2>, then is <H3> even smaller?" I asked as I dug my feet into his shoulder to hang on. "You've got it!" Rayzer said. "Look at this: <H3>This is the title heading H3 for Subsections</H3>.

This is a title heading H3 for Subsections

"It looks like regular font size except for bold face." I observed. I snuck a peanut.

"Yep, and if you use a larger number up to number 6, the font gets smaller. See" He typed the following:

<H4> is smaller than </H4>

This is H4 for Sub-Subsections

<H5> is smaller than </H5>

This is H5 for Sub-Sub-Subsections

<H6> is smaller than </H6>

And this is H6 for Sub-Sub even more Sub-Subsections

I had to strain to see the last one. "Boy that's small," I said. He offered me his last peanut, but I declined. After all, I'm not greedy. He should have some too. "So is that all the formatting you can do?"

"You can make italics with <I>italics</I> so that the words lean and are different from the words around them and you can more easily see them. And you can make words bold faced like so: <B>bold</B>."

I scratched my head at the last formatting tag. "Uh, what's the difference between that and <H3>?"

"Well <H3> is a section header, so it sits on a line by itself, but <B> isn't a section header, and it can be surrounded with other words. Try for yourself."

"So is that it?" I asked. I began to climb down from his shoulder because I was going to my home web to try out what Rayzer had just told me.

"Well there are other formatting tags, but you can explore them on your own in the dictionary of HTML tags. They're well worth trying because you can do things like change word colors."

"OK," I said as I climbed off his shoulder and into the computer to go through the Internet back to my home web. "And Rayzer."

"Yeah Spinner," he answered just before he pressed the key that would shoot me back through the Internet.

"Next time get M&Ms. Especially the new blue ones."