Text Sizes

As with text colors, text sizes can be changed using HTML or CSS. CSS is the newer standard and offers much greater control, but some people still prefer simple HTML. You may want to view the tutorial for changing text sizes in the CSS Tutorials section of the site to compare the two methods.

There are three ways to format text size using HTML. Heading tags are generally used a manner similar to a newspaper heading, to introduce the page and break a page up into content areas. A heading tag creates an empty line above and below the heading text. Headings come in six sizes, and are coded like this:

<h4>Your Text Goes Here</h4>

I'll have to show you how big the sizes are in a pop-up window because I've used CSS to control the heading sizes on this site. Using only HTML, you cannot control the heading size other than to use one of the six different sizes. You need to have JavaScript enabled to open the headings demo page, and here it is now.

As you can see, if you took a look, the larger the heading number used, the smaller the text. Whoever made that rule up must have been standing on his or head at the time. Search engines place more importance on words found inside heading tags because you are emphasizing them. Thus, it's a good idea to use headings with keywords related to your content. You can learn more about search engine optimization the Web Site Marketing section of this web site.

Font Sizes

You can specify a font size in sizes 1 - 7, like this:

<font size="3">Text Here</font>

The default display is size 3. Here are samples of text sizes:

Size 1 - Small ain't it?
Size 2 - A little bigger.
Size 3 - This is the default size.
Size 4 - Growing up a bit now.
Size 5 - Getting even bigger.
Size 6 - Oh, look mommy!
Size 7 - Wowzers!!!

Font sizes can also be coded using a plus or minus sign. Using a plus or minus sign increases or decreases the font size relative to the default size. Example:

<font size="+1">This text would be plus 1 (size 4).</font>

That's a snap, eh Mr. Whippysnizzle!