The Essential HTML tags

This page presents the most common HTML text markup tags. You may also wish to consult a longer list of text tags, or a longer guide to other HTML tags such as image and table tags. 

HTML code

Resulting Text

Character tags

This is untagged text
This is untagged text 
<B>bold</B>
bold 
<I>italic</I>
italic 
<U>underline</U>
underline

Format tags

<BLOCKQUOTE>block quotation</BLOCKQUOTE>
block quotation
forces a <BR>line break
forces a
line break 
<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Section One</DIV>
<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>Section Two</DIV>
<DIV ALIGN=RIGHT>Section Two</DIV>
Section One
Section Two
Section Three
<HR>

<H1>Header 1</H1>

Header 1

<H2>Header 2</H2>

Header 2

<H3>Header 3</H3>

Header 3

<P ALIGN=LEFT>Paragraph one</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER>Paragraph two</P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT>Paragraph three</P>

Paragraph one

Paragraph two

Paragraph three

<DIR>Directory List</DIR>
Directory List

List tags

<UL>
<LI>first list item
<LI>second list item
</UL>
  • first list item
  • second list item
<OL>
<LI>first list item
<LI>second list item
</OL>
  1. first list item
  2. second list item