15 Alignment, font styles, and horizontal
rules
This section of the specification discusses some HTML elements and
attributes that may be used for visual formatting of elements. Many of them are
deprecated.
15.1 Formatting
Attribute definitions
- bgcolor = color [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute sets the background color for the document body or table cells.
This attribute sets the background color of the canvas for the document body
(the BODY element) or for tables (the
TABLE, TR, TH, and
TD elements). Additional attributes for specifying text color can be
used with the BODY element.
This attribute has been deprecated
in favor of style sheets for specifying background color information.
It is possible to align block elements (tables, images, objects, paragraphs,
etc.) on the canvas with the align attribute. Although this
attribute may be set for many HTML elements, its range of possible values
sometimes differs from element to element. Here we only discuss the meaning of
the align attribute for text.
Attribute definitions
- align =
left|center|right|justify
[CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute specifies the horizontal alignment of its element with respect to the
surrounding context. Possible values:
- left: text lines are rendered flush left.
- center: text lines are centered.
- right: text lines are rendered flush right.
- justify: text lines are justified to both margins.
The default depends on the base text direction. For left to right text, the
default is align=left, while for right to left text, the default
is align=right.
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
This example centers a heading on the canvas.
<H1 align="center"> How to Carve Wood </H1>
Using CSS, for example, you could achieve the same effect as follows:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
H1 { text-align: center}
</STYLE>
<BODY>
<H1> How to Carve Wood </H1>
Note that this would center all H1 declarations. You could reduce
the scope of the style by setting the
class attribute on the element:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
H1.wood {text-align: center}
</STYLE>
<BODY>
<H1 class="wood"> How to Carve Wood </H1>
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
Similarly, to right align a paragraph on the canvas with HTML's align
attribute you could have:
<P align="right">...Lots of paragraph text...
which, with CSS, would be:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
P.mypar {text-align: right}
</STYLE>
<BODY>
<P class="mypar">...Lots of paragraph text...
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
To right align a series of paragraphs, group them with the
DIV element:
<DIV align="right">
<P>...text in first paragraph...
<P>...text in second paragraph...
<P>...text in third paragraph...
</DIV>
With CSS, the text-align property is inherited from the parent element, you
can therefore use:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
DIV.mypars {text-align: right}
</STYLE>
<BODY>
<DIV class="mypars">
<P>...text in first paragraph...
<P>...text in second paragraph...
<P>...text in third paragraph...
</DIV>
To center the entire document with CSS:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
BODY {text-align: center}
</STYLE>
<BODY>
...the body is centered...
</BODY>
The CENTER element is
exactly equivalent to specifying the DIV element with the align
attribute set to "center". The CENTER element is deprecated.
Images and objects may appear directly "in-line" or may be floated to one
side of the page, temporarily altering the margins of text that may flow on
either side of the object.
The
align attribute for objects, images, tables, frames, etc., causes
the object to float to the left or right margin. Floating objects generally
begin a new line. This attribute takes the following values:
- left: Floats the object to the current left margin. Subsequent
text flows along the image's right side.
- right: Floats the object to the current right margin.
Subsequent text flows along the image's left side.
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
The following example shows how to float an
IMG element to the current left margin of the canvas.
<IMG align="left" src="http://foo.com/animage.gif" alt="my boat">
Some alignment attributes also permit the "center" value, which does not
cause floating, but centers the object within the current margins. However, for
P and DIV, the value "center" causes the contents of the
element to be centered.
Another attribute, defined for the BR element, controls
text flow around floating objects.
Attribute definitions
- clear =
none|left|right|all
[CI]
- Deprecated.
Specifies where the next line should appear in a visual browser after the line
break caused by this element. This attribute takes into account floating
objects (images, tables, etc.). Possible values:
- none: The next line will begin normally. This is the default
value.
- left: The next line will begin at nearest line below any
floating objects on the left-hand margin.
- right: The next line will begin at nearest line below any
floating objects on the right-hand margin.
- all: The next line will begin at nearest line below any
floating objects on either margin.
Consider the following visual scenario, where text flows to the right of an
image until a line is broken by a BR:
********* -------
| | -------
| image | --<BR>
| |
*********
If the clear attribute is set to none, the line
following BR will begin immediately below it at the right margin of
the image:
********* -------
| | -------
| image | --<BR>
| | ------
*********
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
If the clear attribute is set to left or
all, the next line will appear as follows:
********* -------
| | -------
| image | --<BR clear="left">
| |
*********
-----------------
Using style sheets, you could specify that all line breaks should behave
this way for objects (images, tables, etc.) floating against the left margin.
With CSS, you could achieve this as follows:
<STYLE type="text/css">
BR { clear: left }
</STYLE>
To specify this behavior for a specific instance of the BR
element, you could combine style information and the
id attribute:
<HEAD>
...
<STYLE type="text/css">
BR#mybr { clear: left }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P>...
********* -------
| | -------
| table | --<BR id="mybr">
| |
*********
-----------------
...
</BODY>
The following HTML elements specify font information. Although they are
not all deprecated, their use is
discouraged in favor of style sheets.
Start tag: required, End tag:
required
Attributes defined elsewhere
-
id, class (document-wide identifiers)
- lang (language information),
dir (text
direction)
- title (element
title)
-
style (inline style
information)
- onclick, ondblclick,
onmousedown, onmouseup,
onmouseover, onmousemove,
onmouseout, onkeypress,
onkeydown onkeyup (intrinsic events)
Rendering of font style elements depends on the user agent. The following is
an informative description only.
- TT: Renders as teletype or monospaced text.
- I: Renders as italic text style.
- B: Renders as bold text style.
- BIG: Renders text in a "large" font.
- SMALL: Renders text in a "small" font.
- STRIKE and S:
Deprecated. Render strike-through style text.
- U:
Deprecated. Renders underlined text.
The following sentence shows several types of text:
<P><b>bold</b>,
<i>italic</i>, <b><i>bold italic</i></b>, <tt>teletype text</tt>, and
<big>big</big> and <small>small</small> text.
These words might be rendered as follows:
It is possible to achieve a much richer variety of font effects using style
sheets. To specify blue, italic text in a paragraph with CSS:
<HEAD>
<STYLE type="text/css">
P#mypar {font-style: italic; color: blue}
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<P id="mypar">...Lots of blue italic text...
Font style elements must be properly nested. Rendering of nested font style
elements depends on the user agent.
FONT and BASEFONT are deprecated.
See the Transitional DTD for
the formal definition.
Attribute definitions
- size =
cdata [CN]
- Deprecated. This
attribute sets the size of the font. Possible values:
- An integer between 1 and 7. This sets the font to some fixed size, whose
rendering depends on the user agent. Not all user agents may render all seven
sizes.
- A relative increase in font size. The value "+1" means one size larger. The
value "-3" means three sizes smaller. All sizes belong to the scale of 1 to
7.
- color = color [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute sets the text color.
- face = cdata [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute defines a comma-separated list of font names the user agent should
search for in order of preference.
Attributes defined elsewhere
The
FONT element changes the font size and color for text in its
contents.
The BASEFONT element sets the base font size (using the size attribute). Font size changes achieved with FONT
are relative to the base font size set by BASEFONT. If
BASEFONT is not used, the default base font size is 3.
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
The following example will show the difference between the seven font sizes
available with FONT:
<P><font size=1>size=1</font>
<font size=2>size=2</font>
<font size=3>size=3</font>
<font size=4>size=4</font>
<font size=5>size=5</font>
<font size=6>size=6</font>
<font size=7>size=7</font>
This might be rendered as:
The following shows an example of the effect of relative font sizes using a
base font size of 3:
The base font size does not apply to headings, except where these are
modified using the FONT element with a relative font size change.
15.3 Rules: the
HR element
Start tag: required, End tag:
forbidden
Attribute definitions
- align =
left|center|right [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute specifies the horizontal alignment of the rule with respect to the
surrounding context. Possible values:
- left: the rule is rendered flush left.
- center: the rule is centered.
- right: the rule is rendered flush right.
The default is align=center.
- noshade [CI]
- Deprecated. When
set, this boolean attribute requests that the user agent render the rule in a
solid color rather than as the traditional two-color "groove".
- size = pixels [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute specifies the height of the rule. The default value for this
attribute depends on the user agent.
- width = length [CI]
- Deprecated. This
attribute specifies the width of the rule. The default width is 100%, i.e., the
rule extends across the entire canvas.
Attributes defined elsewhere
-
id, class (document-wide identifiers)
- lang (language information),
dir (text
direction)
- title (element
title)
-
style (inline style
information)
- onclick, ondblclick,
onmousedown, onmouseup,
onmouseover, onmousemove,
onmouseout, onkeypress,
onkeydown, onkeyup (intrinsic events)
The
HR element causes a horizontal rule to be rendered by visual user
agents.
The amount of vertical space inserted between a rule and the content that
surrounds it depends on the user agent.
DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
This example centers the rules, sizing them to half the available width
between the margins. The top rule has the default thickness while the bottom
two are set to 5 pixels. The bottom rule should be rendered in a solid color
without shading:
<HR width="50%" align="center">
<HR size="5" width="50%" align="center">
<HR noshade size="5" width="50%" align="center">
These rules might be rendered as follows:
| 
Style Sheets
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