9 Preformatted Text, Special Characters, and Definition List

Activity

Preformatted Text

For our Volcano lesson, we want to add a table under the Introduction section that lists several well-known volcanoes, when they erupted, and the volume of erupted material. To do this:

1.        Open the second HTML file, index.html in your text editor.

2.        Under the last portion of the Introduction section, place a header of level 4 (<h4>) with the text Volumes of Some Well-Known Volcanic Eruptions.

3.        Below this heading, enter the following text exactly as follows (this would by an opportune time to cut and paste from this web page!):

<pre>

  Eruption                      Date           Volume in km^3

  --------     &nbssp;                ----           --------------

  Paricutin, Mexico             1943                 1.3

  Mt. Vesuvius, Italy          79 A.D.                3

  Mount St. Helen, Washington   1980                  4

  Krakatoa, Indonesia           1883                 18

  Long Valley, California     pre-historic        500 - 600

  Yellowstone, Wyoming        pre-historic           2400

</pre>

In this example we use space characters to make the first column left justified and the other 2 columns center-justified. The dashes are used to highlight the column headings.

4.        Save and Reload in your web browser.

Special Characters

Now we will add a sentence to our HTML document that uses an accented letter:

1.        Open the HTML file, index.html in your text editor.

2.        Under the list of terms of the Volcanology Terminology section enter the text:

  The term <I>nu&eacute;e ardente,</I> or

  "glowing cloud" was first used by La Croix (1904)

  in his description of the volcanic flows he observed in

  the 1902 eruption of Mt Pel&eacute;e, a historically

  active volcano on the island of Martinique.

NOTE: We have applied the acute accent mark for two "e" letters in this sentence. It may look strange! Be sure that you replace the letter with the sequence that displays the same letter with the accent mark.

3.        Save and Reload the HTML file.

Now let's apply the escape sequences ese symbols in our Volcano lesson. In the previous lesson, we added a table that lists several volcanoes and how much material was erupted from each. Let's say one of the values (500-600) for Long Valley is not very accurate (often such values are estimates), and we would like the entry to read >450 & <700. To do this:

1.        Open the HTML file, index.html in your text editor.

2.        Under the heading of Volumes of Some Well-Known Volcanic Eruptions, find the line for Long Valley in our table:

  Long Valley, California     pre-historic        500 - 600

and change it to:

  Long Valley, California     pre-historic       >450 & <700

NOTE: Although we are using the escape sequences within a preformatted text, note how a web browser properly interprets and displays the special characters. The escape sequences can thus be used in all portions of an HTML document including headings and anchor links.

3.        Save and Reload the HTML file.

Definition list

The definition list might be used as a glossary , but for our example we will use it to create a short bibliography for our Volcano Web lesson:

1.        Open the HTML file, index.html in your text editor.

2.        After the unordered list under the heading References enter the following:

<h3>Bibliography</h3>

Check your library for these books:

<dl>

<dt>Cas, R.A.F. and Wright, J. V. (1987). 

<dd><I>Volcanic Successions: Modern and Ancient.</I> 

London: Allen & Unwin.

<dt>La Croix, A. (1904)

<dd><I>La Montagna Pel&eacute;e et ses &Eacute;ruptions.</I>

Paris: Masson

<dt>Lipman, P.W. and Mullineaux (eds). (1981)

<dd><I>The 1980 Eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington.</I>

U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1250.

</dl>

NOTE: We have used some of the Special Characters for the ampersand symbol ("&") in the first reference and for the accent marks in the second reference.

3.        Save and Reload into your web browser.