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February 26, 2006--HTML 1
First off today, I want to welcome our new member, B.H. Thanks for joining.
Ok, let's get started...
Did you ever wonder what is behind the pages that you see on the net?
The next time you write an email in OE, make sure that under view, you have source/edit checked.
Then, at the bottom of your message, click on source, and you will see what is there. All this writing is what causes your messages to look the way they do.
The next time you are viewing a page in IE, go to view/source and you will see what makes up a page on the internet.There is a lot to know in order to do this.
Let's get back to your message that you were writing; chances are, you have a simple font in black on a white background.
Let's learn a little bit of HTML so you can change that look. HTML means Hypertext Markup Language; this bit of knowledge isn't going to revolutionize your life ...lol; it's just to let you know what the term is.
OK, staying with that message you were writing and having clicked on source at the bottom, how can we change the colors?
First, let's change the background color: look to find the line that looks like this:
BODY bgColor=#ffffff;
Body means the body of your letter; bgcolor is self-explanatory; # means number, of course; and the six F's that follow mean that your background will be white because "ffffff" is the color number for white.
What if you wanted to make it dark blue? Try 000080; or black? Try 000000; See how it changes?
So, you are making your changes in source mode and you must hit preview, next to it, to see those changes.
OK, but how will you know what numbers to use for different colors?
You can go Here and get a chart of the color codes; you can print it out;
or you can go Here and download the cutest little device to help you with your colors. This is a small file that you download to your desktop so it is always ready for you to use. You install it in your programs and keep a shortcut on your desktop.
This little device, called color Cop, has an eye dropper on it; you drag the eye dropper to some color you like and it will give you the color code (number) for that color;
it's good to have both the chart and color cop.
Sometimes you want the code for a specific shade of green, for example, and don't happen to have any green on your desktop. Then you would go to the chart.
I never, ever go to the chart anymore because I have made color cop work for me. I open it and click "custom" and choose my color from there. Anyway, whatever works for you.
Let's get back to our message. If you haven't already written anything, click edit at the bottom, and write a few words. Now, click source;
somewhere in there you will see something like this:FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=3;
This is the name of your font, followed by the color and the size. Whatever your OE program is set at, that's what is indicated here.
So, if you want to change the color of your font, you do it in the same manner as you changed the background color.
If you get really brave, you could play with the name of your font, and the size, just to see what would happen.
Now, you'll tell me that you don't have to know any HTML coding in order to change the font name and the size of the font, and I agree with you; however, I'm looking to the future, and some day, if you want to code stationery or webpages,you will have to know how to write these. So, I leave you to play. Enjoy.
Ciao for now. | | |
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