Formatting a Basic Web Page

There are many ways to change the appearance of your Web page. One of the easiest and most noticeable ways is to add color. There are several ways to add color to your page. You can add color to the text, and if you are using a table to help you layout your page, then you can add color to the entire table or to individual cells. The Property Inspector window is where you will find the options for adding color.

To change the color of your text, first highlight the text that you wish to change. Then, go to the Property Inspector and click in the square indicated in the image above. A window containing a variety of colors (pictured below) will be displayed. If you would rather customize your own color, then select the paint palette in the upper right-hand corner of the display (to the left of the arrow). You can also select the arrow in the upper right-hand corner for different ways of displaying the color palette.

Once you select a color, the text will be changed to that color.

You can also specify a text color before you have typed any text and then whatever you type will be that color. One thing to keep in mind when selecting text color is whether or not the color makes the text easy to read. Certain colors only work well with certain background colors. For example, bright yellow is really hard to read on a white background.

Now can you read the text?

Bright yellow is much easier to read when it is on a black background.

Another way to enhance your page is by changing the background color. If you are using a table to layout your Web page, you can change the color of the entire table or of the individual cells. To change the color of the entire table, first select the table.

Next go to the Property Inspector and click in the square indicated in the image below (Bg Color) and select the color you want the background to be.

this is the first row

this is the second row

The entire table will now contain the background color you selected.

If you would prefer to add background color to individual cells, then simply select the cell you wish to add background color to by placing your cursor in that cell.

my cursor is in this cell in front of the first word in this sentence	Cell two
Cell three	Smile :)

Next, go to the Property Inspector and select the square indicated in the image below. Notice, to change the color of an individual cell, the background color command is displayed a little differently than illustrated above.

The cell in which you placed your cursor will now contain the background color. To change the color of another cell, simply repeat the process for each cell you wish to change.

my cursor is in front of the first word in this sentence	Cell two
Cell three	Smile :)

Another way to change the features of your Web page is to go to the Modify menu and select Page Properties.

The following window will be displayed which offers several ways to modify your Web page. Most of these options are for setting attributes to be used for the entire page, whereas, the skill activities above describe how to modify specific sections of your Web page. With regard to your page properties, an important thing to do is to give your Web page a title. Note, that the title and the file name that you use to save your Web page are not the same thing. The Background Image option allows you to specify an image to be displayed as the background of your Web page. If you would like to have a background color for the entire Web page then you would specify the color in the Background box. You can also set the color of the text for the entire page. If your Web page will contain links, you can also set the color of the link.

Once you have decided upon the content of your Web page and are happy with its features, a good thing to do is check for spelling errors. To do this go to the Text menu and select the Check Spelling option.

Now that you have created and formatted your Web page, its time to add some links!

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