You can format text with certain HTML (HyperText Markup Language) markup tags and LiveJournal-specific markup tags like <lj-cut>
and <lj user>
. Alternatively, you can use the Rich Text editor
to format your entries, which does not require HTML knowledge.
General HTML Guidelines
A basic HTML markup tag looks like <tag>
; this is an opening tag that tells your browser to start doing something. For instance, HTML tags can tell your browser to apply a certain effect – such as bold, italics, underlining, color, or font size – to the text between the opening tag and the closing tag. Most of the time, this opening tag will need a closing tag, </tag>
, which tells your browser to stop doing what the opening tag told it to do.
Some tags do not need a closing tag, but can be closed by inserting a space and a forward slash before the last angle bracket, thus: <tag />
. These tags generally insert an object, rather than applying formatting to the following text; one example is the <img>
tag, which inserts an image into the document.
Complex HTML tags use pairs of attributes and values to give more formatting information. (For example, the different attributes of a <font> tag can specify size, color, font face, and so on.) They will be formatted attribute="value"
; spaces should separate the tag name and the attribute
" pairs, along with the different pairs. The closing tag will only contain the tag name, and none of the attributes.
<tag attribute1="value1" attribute2="value2"> text to affect </tag>
Common HTML Effects
- Bold: <b>This text is bold</b>. <strong>This text is strongly marked up.</strong>.
- Italics: <i>This text is italicised</i>. <em>This text is emphasized.</em>.
- Underline: <u>This text is underlined</u>.
<center>Centered text must start on a separate line.</center>
- <big> and <small>: This text is <big>big</big> and <small>small</small>.
- Multiple HTML Tags: You can also apply multiple HTML tags to the same text. When you use multiple tags, the closing tags should be in reverse order to the opening tags, so that the first closing tag applies to the last opening tag, and so on.
<b><i><u>This text is bold, italic, and underlined</u></i></b>
- Other HTML options: You can also use HTML to change the color, size, and font of your text, link to another journal or website, or add images.