Web pages are usually text files written with a special notation called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). An Internet browser translates these text files and displays the text according to the HTML directions it finds in each file.
In GED-GEN, you may personalize certain text that will appear on the generated web pages. For example you may specify your own page header and introductory text. If you want fancy text formatting, you must enter the text using HTML syntax. If you are unfamiliar with HTML, here are some common elements you might find useful:
| This Text with HTML Syntax... | ...will display as | Comments |
| <b>Sample</b> | Sample | bold font |
| <i>Sample</i> | Sample | italic font |
| <font size="+2">Sample</font> | Sample | larger font |
| <font color="#008000">Sample</font> | Sample | font color |
| <center>Sample</center> | centered | |
| Line One<br>Line Two | Line One Line Two |
line break |
| <p>Paragraph One<p>Paragraph Two | Paragraph One Paragraph Two |
paragraphs |
| <center> <font size="+2" color="#008000"> <b><i>Sample</i></b> </font> </center> |
combination | |
| <a href="mailto:email@address.com"> Your Name</a> |
Your Name | E-Mail link (replace email@address.com with your email address) |
| <a href="page.html">Sample</a> | Sample | Link to another web page (replace page.html with your web page file name) |
| <img src="image1.jpg" alt="Grandpa" border="0"> |  |
Insert an image (replace image1.jpg with your image file) |
Many of the above elements are "deprecated," meaning they may become obsolete in future versions of the HTML standard. Use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the preferred way to format web page text. However a description of CSS is beyond the scope of this help information.
If you want your family pages to have the title "Doe Family Group Sheets," you could specify the following in the family page Header field on the Headers tab:
and it will appear on your family pages as:
If you want your text to appear in different colors, you can specify a color code. For example, a font element:
An HTML color code begins with a # character. This is followed by three pairs of two hexadecimal digits indicating the relative strength of the colors Red, Green, and Blue. The following table lists the color codes for several common colors:
Black #000000 |
Blue #0000FF |
Dark Blue #00008B |
Cyan #00FFFF |
Dark Cyan #008B8B |
Gray #808080 |
Dark Gray #A9A9A9 |
Green #008000 |
Dark Green #006400 |
Magenta #FF00FF |
Olive #808000 |
Purple #800080 |
Red #FF0000 |
Dark Red #8B0000 |
White #FFFFFF |
Yellow #FFFF00 |
If you want special characters to appear in your web pages, then you must use a special HTML syntax. If these characters were entered directly, they would be interpreted as HTML syntax and may not display correctly. For example the following heading:
must be entered as:
The following table lists common special characters you may find useful. Each begins with an ampersand character and ends with a semicolon character.
| HTML Syntax | Symbol | Meaning |
| < | < | Less-than symbol |
| > | > | Greater-than symbol |
| & | & | Ampersand symbol |
| © | © | Copyright symbol |
| | Non-breaking space | Used to add more than one space between words. |
Note that GED-GEN automatically converts certain special characters that appear in your GEDCOM file to the appropriate HTML syntax. This conversion occurs in your facts, research and marriage notes fields.