HTML Tutorial #2:
...worth a thousand words

So ya wanna build a homepage, but you're thinking you need a degree in HTML and years of computer programming experience to do it? Relax! It's as easy as slapping Post-It notes on your refrigerator door!

OK, you know the basics of making a page. Now you want to add value to your page (you hope) using a really sexy image:

The exchange rate between Taiwan and America has been quite unkind recently to those who wish to convert NT dollars into U.S. dollars. In fact, the same is true throughout Asia these days... SO you can expect to make about $400 NT per hour (before taxes) in a cram school, which if you use a 33/1 ratio is about $12.12 U.S. per hour...

What tags do you need to know to do this? Well, you really only need to know one tag, and it helps to put a few extra attributes on the tag you'll use. The tag for putting pictures on your page is
The painfully accurate image of the cash flying out of my wallet, for example, was put on this page using this tag: You're already getting pretty good at this game of guessing what the abbreviations in HTML tags mean, so you've guessed that IMG means "image" and SRC means "source." So far so good. You've also noticed that there's no closing tag with a slash "/". When you use the and tags to display text as bold, your browser doesn't know when you want to stop using bold letters. You have to tell it with a closing tag. On the other hand, an image already has a clearly defined beginning and ending. You don't need to supply a closing tag to tell the browser where the end of an image is... The name of the image is cash_byebye.gif Now, assuming that you actually do have a picture called "cash_byebye.gif" (and if you don't know how to copy mine, I'll tell you in a minute .. be patient, grasshopper..), then that image will pop up whenever your HTML document is viewed using a browser.
The cash_byebye.gif image is 74 pixels high and 58 pixels wide. A pixel is the basic drawing unit of a computer. Remember sitting really really close to your TV when you were nine years old, so you could see the red-and-blue-and-green dots that were the basic drawing units of the screen? Well, a pixel is kinda like that (not really, but close enough). It's always good practice to include the HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes whenever you place an image on your document, because it will show up on other people's browsers faster if their computer is told exactly how big the image is, and doesn't have to figure that info out for itself...
Meanwhile, the letters gif (after the period in the image's name) tell your browser exactly which format the image is -- the two most common are gif and jpg. If you don't tell your browser what format the images are, then the browser can't figure that one out by itself, so you don't get any picture on your page... Remember when I said that it doesn't matter whether you use upper or lower case letters in HTML tags? Well, one time it does matter is when you're typing the name of an image. CASH _BYEBYE.gif and cash_byebye.gif and cash_byebye.GIF are three different images, if you ask your browser... And a lotta people argue, BTW, over whether the letter g in gif should be pronounced like a hard g or like a j. You and I are socially non-exclusive and emotionally mature individuals, however, and really don't give a hang.
There's one more attribute of the IMG tag that you should know about: the ALIGN attribute. I won't bore you with extra explanations. I'm just gonna put a few examples up. You're smart. You can figure it all out.

The exchange rate between Taiwan and America has been quite unkind recently to those who wish to convert NT dollars into U.S. dollars. In fact, the same is true throughout Asia these days... SO you can expect to make about $400 NT per hour (before taxes) in a cram school, which if you use a 33/1 ratio is about $12.12 U.S. per hour...

The exchange rate between Taiwan and America has been quite unkind recently to those who wish to convert NT dollars into U.S. dollars. In fact, the same is true throughout Asia these days... SO you can expect to make about $400 NT per hour (before taxes) in a cram school, which if you use a 33/1 ratio is about $12.12 U.S. per hour...

The exchange rate between Taiwan and America has been quite unkind recently to those who wish to convert NT dollars into U.S. dollars. In fact, the same is true throughout Asia these days... SO you can expect to make about $400 NT per hour (before taxes) in a cram school, which if you use a 33/1 ratio is about $12.12 U.S. per hour...

OK, the way to grab images is easy. Just put your pointer on the image and right-click it. Go ahead. Push the right mouse button. Now you should see a little pop-up menu. Select "Save Image As" and click the left mouse button. then you'll get another pop-up. Select the "Save" button. Watch it save the image to you hard-drive (probably to your desktop). There. You're done. It was easy.
For more info and links about HTML and webpage building, please see the Cafe's very own Webpage Building Links and Tips page.

...and more tutorials to come soon!

Copyright (c) 1998 Timothy M. Nall. All rights reserved.
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HTML Tutorial #2: ...worth a thousand words

HTML Tutorial #2:
...worth a thousand words