Space is very valuable, and it can really help you make your postings easy to both read
and to understand. Some handy tags that will help you create the space you need around
your posting follow.
horizontal rule. Suppose you have decided that you want your message to be
preceeded and followed by a horizontal line.
The tag you will want to make use of it this: <HR>, and it will allow you to format
your message so that it looks like this:
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
What does the HTML look like? Here you are:
<HR>
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
<HR>
Note that this tag does not require a closure tag (of the form </HR>). It's
independent, stands on its own, is a loner.
If you want, you can also make your horizontal line fatter, like this:
<HR SIZE=a number>. The number specifies the
thickness that you want your line to be in pixels (What, you wonder, are pixels?).
If you format your post like so:
<HR SIZE=10>
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far!
Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
<HR SIZE=10>
The effect will be:
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far!
Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
There are a lot of other ways you can use the <HR> tag, and each will give you
a different kind of an effect. Here's a table that outlines a few of the ways you
can use it, and what the result looks like...
the tag
what it means
the effect
<HR WIDTH=50>
The width tag changes the width of your line
(in pixels).
<HR NOSHADE>
The noshade tag gives you a horizontal rule that is solid black.
<HR WIDTH=50 NOSHADE ALIGN=RIGHT>
This is a combination horizontal rule. It will be solid black, aligned to right of the cell it is placed in and have a width of 50
(in pixels, as before).
You can experiment with them and see what different combinations you come up with.
line break. You may however, demand still more space for your post.
Say you want to add a line break between the top horizontal line and the text
that you write. How to do this? Use the <BR> tag, like this:
<HR>
<BR>
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far!
Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
<HR>
Now your post will read:
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far!
Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
Note that, like with the <HR> tag, you do not need to use a closing tag (i.e. a tag
of the form </BR>) to make your line break work.
paragraph break. A paragraph break inserts two line breaks into your text, and
is used at the beginning of new paragraphs to sort of set them off from the rest of the
text. The tag looks like this: <P>, and it used in the following way:
<HR>
<P>
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
<HR>
The effect that this has when veiwed on a browser is going to be very much like what
you saw when you added two line breaks before your text, and will be:
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
One of the key differences between the <P> tag and the <BR> tag is that you can
align text in different ways with the <P> tag, while you can't with the <BR>. For
example, if you want to align your posting to the right, you would do the following in
your HTML:
<HR>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT>
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
<HR>
The effect will look like this:
"Dear gURL, you've gone too far! Your body hair talk has totally grossed me out!"
centering. So you've added a horizontal rule, added some space, and now you want
to center the text of your post between the two lines. The tag pair you are going to make
use of to do this is the '<DIV ALIGN="CENTER">...</DIV>' pair, and it is used in the following way:
