CS110 HTML Reference

This document is a condensed version of this HTML 4 reference. It is modified under the terms of the Open Publication License, (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). This derivative work is copyrighted by Scott D. Anderson, and is released under the Open Publication License. The changes are primarily to condense it, omitting tags not covered in CS110, and putting in typical attributes and values. Changes by Scott D. Anderson

Common Attributes

Essentially every tag supports the following common attributes:

• ID - specify a unique identity or label for this element, used for CSS, for URL fragments, and for accessing element using DOM.
• CLASS - specify a style sheet for this element and elts like it.
• NAME - similar to ID, but an older feature
• JavaScript events, such as onMouseOver, onMouseOut, onClick.

Top-level Elements

• HTML - HTML document
  • HEAD - Document head
  • BODY - Document body. Can support an onload event handler

Head Elements

• LINK - Document relationship (to external style sheet). Attributes: SRC="URL" REL="stylesheet"
• META - Metadata, such as keywords, description, author, and so forth. Attributes: NAME="type" CONTENT="value"
• SCRIPT - Client-side script. Attributes: TYPE="text/JavaScript" also SRC="URL"
• STYLE - Embedded style sheet. Attributes: TYPE="text/css"
• TITLE - Document title

Generic Block-level Elements

• BLOCKQUOTE - Block quotation
• DIV - Generic block-level container
• H1 - H6 - Levels of heading
• HR - Horizontal rule (a rule is a line across an element)
• P - Paragraph. Closing tag is optional.
• PRE - Preformatted text, usually in a monospace typewriter font

Lists

• LI - List item. Closing tag is optional.
• OL - Ordered list, so items are numbered, lettered or whatever
• UL - Unordered list, elements are given bullets of some sort
DL - Definition list
• DT - Definition term
• DD - Definition description

Tables

The following attributes apply to many of the tags below: CELLSPACING, CELLPADDING, WIDTH, and HEIGHT. All values are a length (in pixels) or a percentage. Another common attribute is BGCOLOR, whose value is a color. But it's usually better to use CSS.

• TABLE - Table. Attributes: BORDER="length" SUMMARY="text"
  • CAPTION - Table caption, typically is centered above the table
  COLGROUP - Table column group
  • COL - Table column
  THEAD - Table head
  TFOOT - Table foot
  TBODY - Table body
  • TR - Table row
    • TD - Table data cell
    • TH - Table header cell

Forms

• FORM - Interactive form. Attributes: NAME="DOM identifier" METHOD="post" ACTION="url of CGI script" onSubmit="event handler"
  • BUTTON - Button. Attributes: VALUE="text in the button" onClick="JavaScript code"
  FIELDSET - Form control group
  • LEGEND - Fieldset caption
  • INPUT - Form input. Attributes: TYPE="kind of input" NAME="DOM identifier" VALUE="form data" Types include text, hidden, radio, checkbox, and button
  • LABEL - Form field label. Attribute is FOR="idref"
  • SELECT - Option selector
    • OPTION - Menu option. Attribute VALUE="form data"
  • TEXTAREA - Multi-line text input. Attributes: ROWS="number" COLS="number"

Inline Elements

• A - Anchor or hyperlink. Attributes: href="url"
• BR - Line break
• IMG - Inline image. Attributes: SRC="url" ALT="text"
• MAP - Image map. Attributes: name="identifier"
  • AREA - Image map region. Attributes: SHAPE="rect, poly or circ" COORD="x,y pairs" HREF="url"
• Q - Short quotation
• SCRIPT - Client-side script. Attributes same as when it's in the head
• SPAN - Generic inline container
SUB - Subscript
SUP - Superscript

ABBR - Abbreviation
ACRONYM - Acronym
CITE - Citation
CODE - Computer code
DFN - Defined term
• EM - Emphasis, typically done in italics
• STRONG - Strong emphasis, typically in a bold font weight

Character Entities

Non-ASCII characters can be included in the document by using entities, such as: