HTML 4 Elements

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
• NAME - used the same as ID, but an older feature
• JavaScript events, such as OnMouseOver, OnMouseOut, OnClick.

Top-level Elements

• HTML - HTML document
  • HEAD - Document head
  • BODY - Document body

Head Elements

• LINK - Document relationship
• META - Metadata, such as keywords, description, author, and so forth. Attributes: name="type" content="value"
• SCRIPT - Client-side script. Attributes: type="text/JavaScript"
• 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
• P - Paragraph
• PRE - Preformatted text

Lists

• DL - Definition list
  • DT - Definition term
  • DD - Definition description
• LI - List item
• OL - Ordered list
• UL - Unordered list

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.

• 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"
  • LABEL - Form field label
  • SELECT - Option selector
    • OPTGROUP - Option group
      • OPTION - Menu option
  • TEXTAREA - Multi-line text input. Attributes: rows="number" cols="number"

Special Inline Elements

• A - Anchor or hyperlink. Attributes: href="url"
• BR - Line break
• IMG - Inline image. Attributes: SRC="url" ALT="text" USEMAP="url of map"
• 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

Phrase Elements

• ABBR - Abbreviation
• ACRONYM - Acronym
• CITE - Citation
• CODE - Computer code
• DFN - Defined term
• EM - Emphasis
• STRONG - Strong emphasis