Backgrounds and Link Colors
Let's add some color! You've probably seen web pages with colored background or background patterns or colored links. In fact you've probably seen some on this page. Well now it's time for you to add these fun features to your page.
Background, Text, and Link colors are denoted in <body> section of your page. These settings are the same for your entire page, although you can change the color of individual words or phrases. First we'll cover setting the background, then setting text color, and finally setting link colors.
Backgrounds
There are two methods used to set the background of a web page. You can either use a single solid color, or a tiled image.
Changing the color of the background is a popular method of personalizing a web page. You can have a page with a black, white, green, red, blue, or any other color background. To set the background, you must first know what the symbol for the color is. This symbol is called the hex representation.
Simply type in a space after the "y" in <body> and add bgcolor=. Then type one quotation mark ("), the hex representation of your chosen color (found here), and another quotation mark ("). And Eureka! you now have a colored background!
A patterned background is also a popular way to personalize a web page, although it is a little bit harder. First, take a picture that you or someone else created. You can make pictures with graphics programs like Paintbrush and Paint Shop Pro. This image will be tiled (i.e. the image will be set next to itself multiple times, click here to see some examples) so be sure that the left edge of the image matches the right edge and the top matches the bottom (it will be very easy to see once you do it). The image should have the extension name .gif or .jpg (i.e. save it as .jpg instead of .bmp). Then save the image to the server that hosts your web page (this varies by server, so you'll have to check with the company to find out how to do this). Images that can be used as backgrounds are available on the Internet.
Now it's time to add the image.
Simply type in a space after the "y" in <body> and add background=. Then type one quotation mark ("), the name of your file, and another quotation mark ("). You now have a patterned background!
Text Colors
You can set your text to be any color you want it to be. It's a good idea to use a color that contrasts with the background color (a lighter text color with a darker background color or vice versa). You can use the same hex representations used to set the background color. Now let's change the text color.
Type in a space before the ">" in the "<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> and add text=. Then, type a quotation mark ("), the hex representation of your chosen color, and a second quotation mark ("). You now have colored text! Congratulations! You will learn how to change individual word colors in a few minutes.
Links Colors
Links can also be any color. It is recommended that links be a different color than the text and background so that they are clearly visible. A normal link is a link that the visitor has not yet visited. A visited link is a link the visitor has already gone too. These two links should be different colors to make it easy to distinguish between them.
Add a space before the ">" and type in link= after the text statement, then a quotation mark ("), the hex representation of your chosen color, and another quotation mark ("). Follow the same steps with the vlink= command. Your links are now colored!
