Working with the basefont Tag, Free online HTML Tutorial, Learn HTML online for free...

Recall from the previous lesson where we learned that the tag is used to control the font face, size and color of the text written between and tags. But, what if you need to control the font properties of the whole html web page. If you are thinking that you would open the tag just after the <body> tag and close the font tag i.e. just before </body> tag, you get full marks. But what if you need to use arial as your html web page's default font, and courier font at selected places. You may still use tag to achieve this, but don't you think that your web page's code would become a bit messier. So, what is the solution?

<basefont> tag solves our above problem. The <basefont> tag can be used to control the font face, color and size of a web page's text. When you use <basefont> tag to set the default text properties, you can always use tag to switch to another font and when you close the tag, the properties you set with the <basefont> are applied again, automatically.

<basefont> tag has no closing tag. In current day's browsers this tag works fine, no matter whereever you use it. However, it is recommended that you use this tag anywhere before <body> tag.

Example:

The above code sets the default text color to pink, its size to 5 and the font face is set to Courier New, Courier, mono.

You can play with <basefont> tag's color, face and size attributes.

Next >>> Lesson No. 7: The Body Tag