• The concept of "empty tags"
• Creating space between paragraphs
• Creating a line break
• Creating a horizontal rule
• Assigning different levels of text "headings"
• Centering Text

Empty Tags

Some tags do not require a corresponding ending tag to turn off their effect. These tags are called "empty tags." For example, in order to insert a blank line between paragraphs you need to insert the <P> (for Paragraph) tag. This tag has a one time effect and does not need to be closed.

Paragraph Tag <P>

HTML documents ignore hard returns and line breaks unless we manually assign them with the appropriate tag. In order to create a space between paragraphs we assign the <P> tag. The <P> tag is an example of an "empty" tag in that it has a one time effect and does not need to be closed.

Line Breaks <BR>

There will be times when you want to force a line break. In HTML this is accomplished by assigning the <BR> tag at the point you want text to break. The <BR> tag is another example of an "empty" tag.

Here is
an example
of forced
line breaks.

Horizontal Rules <HR>

The <HR> tag is an empty tag that creates a single horizontal rule. Note: use rules sparingly on your page. They tend to break up the flow of your document and segment bits of information. Example:

Head Tags <H1>

With Head tags we return to a "beginning" and "ending" tag format. Head tags by default are bold and automatically create a line break and white space after the closing tag. Here are six different levels of head tags:

Centering Text

You can center your text by adding a <CENTER> command to the beginning of what you want centered, and another at the end to turn it off.

<CENTER> Make this centered! </CENTER>

Putting it all together

Let's try adding what we learned in this section to our page-in-process. Create a centered headline for your page and add a few paragraphs of text underneath it. Try breaking a line of text up using the <BR> tag too.

Move on to the Third Section