It is good practice to always close a command at the same time that you open it. This helps to lower the instances of code errors.
For example:
If you wanted to italicise some text, good practice would dictate that you start by typing <em> followed immediately by </em> then move your cursor back to between the open and close command, to begin your typing.
i.e. <em> </em> would appear first, then you would place the cursor between the > and < symbols and begin typing. This will give you the following result:
this is a line of italicised text.

To Bold text: use the tags: < strong > and < /strong > around the text that you want bolded, so that your code looks like this: < strong >bold< /strong > Giving you this: bold

To Italicize text: <em> and </em> will italisize text for you: < em > italics< /em > will look like this: italics

To Change the color of text: There are two primary ways to set the color of your font on a webpage. By name, by hex value.

The first, and easiest for most people is by color, since you don’t have to remember a letter or number combination that corresponds to your color.

We would simply say < FONT COLOR=”Red” > RED< /font > this would give us: RED The 15 valid color names for this use are: Aqua, Black, Blue, Gray, Green, Lime, Maroon, Navy, Olive, Purple, Red, Silver, Teal, White, and Yellow.

Next is by hex value, this is one that I use, because it gives me the most choices for colors. We would say: < FONT COLOR=#FF0000 >RED< /font > this would again give us: RED Valid colors here are limited mostly by your imagination. See the next article on Web Colors for more information on this.

To Change the size of text:< FONT SIZE=+1 > Bigger Text< /font > Here we are saying that we want to make the font one step bigger than the default. We can also use values of +1, +2, +3, +4, -1, -2, -3, and -4. By setting the BASEFONT SIZE tag, we give the page a base reference. For instance, we can say that if we set < BASEFONT SIZE=5 > then any change that we make is relative to this.

For instance:
if we use < FONT SIZE=+1 > Text 2 < /font >Text 2 will print in a font size of 6. ( basefont size + 1)

LIkewise, if we use < FONT SIZE=-2 > Text 3 < /font >Text 3 will print in a font size of 3. ( basefont size -2 )

Hint: A good way to learn how something is done on a page that you like is to choose the source option on the view menu in internet explorer. Keep in mind that this won’t always work. If the page is php, asp, or if the author has tried to hide the source in another way, you may not see what you are expecting to see. Also remember that if the page you are viewing uses frames, you will need to click somewhere in the frame that you are interested in, then right-click and choose “view source” Please always respect another person’s work. Just because you can see the source for a person’s page, does not mean that you should copy it and use it as your own