Each formatting tag appears between "less than" (<) and "greater than" (>) signs, and tags often appear in pairs, with the second tag in the pair beginning with a "slash" (/). This is a way to basically turn the formatting on and off. For example, <B> turns the bold on and </B> turns the bold off.

Here's a list of some of the basic formatting tags in HTML:

<h1>...</h1>

header, level 1 (the largest size type for a header, usually used at the beginning of a page or the start of a new section). Smaller headers are tagged with <h2>...</h2>, <h3>...</h3>, etc.

<b>...</b>

boldface text

<i>...</i>

italic text

<center>...</center>

centered text

<p>

paragraph return (inserts a blank line between paragraphs)

Note: Any paragraph returns that you insert in your document by simply hitting the Return key on your keyboard will be ignored by a Web browser. You must use the tag <p> to create a paragraph break on the screen.

<br>

line break (no extra space)

<hr>

horizontal rule (a line running left-to-right across the page, to separate one section from the next)

<ol>...</ol>

ordered, or numbered, list. Each list item begins with the tag <li>, which means list item, and falls somewhere between the <ol>...</ol> tags.

<ul>...</ul>

unordered, or bulleted, list. Again, each list item begins with the tag <li>.

<a href="filename.html">...</a>

a hotlink to another file in the same folder

<a href="http://URL">...</a>

a hotlink to another site. You will have to know the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or Web address, of any site to which you want to link your page.

<img src="image.gif">

This tag would insert an image with the filename "image.gif" on the far left side of your page.