So, what are these "color codes" I keep talking about? How do they work? How do you add background colors to your webpage? Keep reading to find out!
First of all, you need to know what color codes are. Colors in HTML are made by mixing various amounts of green, red, and blue light. The color codes consist of six numbers or letters. The first two control the amount of red light in the color, the second control the amount of green light, the third control blue. Each number can be the letters A to F or the numbers 0 to 9, with F and 9 being the greatest amounts of each color. Making all six letters/numbers F makes white; making all six letters/numbers 0 makes black.
The following link will take you to a page (not mine) that has tons of color codes. Notice, however, that while in the codes on that page each of the two letters for red, green, and blue light are identical, this does not have to be the case:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/2397/
So...after you've picked out the color you want to use, just plug it into any of the color-related codes I showed you in the previous tutorial, and there you go! There are, however, some additional codes you should know.
<BODY BGCOLOR=#xxxxxx> This code is part of the "body" tag, which should be near the top of your codes. (Remember, you learned about it in the "Beginning Codes" tutorial!) Putting a color code in place of the x's will make that color the background color of your page. Remember; if no background color is specified and your viewer is using Netscape, the background color will show up as an ugly shade of gray! You don't want this to happen! But also remember that bright background colors can hurt the eyes and be very annoying to your viewer. Pastel backgrounds are usually the best.
<BODY TEXT=#xxxxxx> I've already showed you how to make your text a certain color, but the color you place in this code will become the default text color; the color your text appears if no other color is later specified. Be sure to choose a text color that stands out well from your background!
<BODY LINK=#xxxxxx> Links normally appear as blue. This code will allow you to change that color.
<BODY VLINK=#xxxxxx> This determines the color of a visited link (normally purple.)
Once again, you can combine all these codes together--you will have to, as a matter of fact, since you can have only one body tag. Like so: <BODY BGCOLOR=#xxxxxx TEXT=#xxxxxx LINK=#xxxxxx VLINK=#xxxxxx>
By the way, if you're wondering how to put background images, instead of just colors, on your webpage, click "Next" below to learn about pictures!
