Let's go back to a plain old screen.

<body>
Something really cool
</body>
Something really cool

We can make things bold.

<body>
Something really <b>cool</b>
</body>
Something really cool

What we are (more or less) telling the browser is: at the <b> start making things bold, and at the </b> stop making things bold. Or, maybe a little more accurately, we are suggesting to the browser that all text contained within the <b> element should be rendered bold.

The same principle applies to italics...

<body>
Something <i>really</i> <b>cool</b>
</body>
Something really cool

...and underlining.

<body>
<u>Something</u> <i>really</i> <b>cool</b>
</body>
Something really cool

Back again to a plain screen.

<body>
Something really cool
</body>
Something really cool

We can use tags in combination if we wish...

<body>
Something really <i><b>cool</b></i>
</body>
Something really cool

This is an example of nested tags. If you are going to use tag pairs in combination (which you will probably be doing quite a bit), then to avoid confusing the browser (not to mention confusing yourself) they should be nested, not overlapping. Let me illustrate...

<-- Overlapping tags.... bad
 
<-- Nested tags.... good
 
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So, you want to make a Web Page!
Lessons: Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Index & Quick Reference      Table of Contents      ColorPicker      BareBones HTML Guide
Color Charts      Simple Font Widget      Practice Exercises      Where are my images?
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