Headers
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3 - Headers


The tags H1, H2, ... H6 are used to represent headers. H1 is the most significant and rendered in a large font*1 (preferably centered). H2 to H6 are progressively less significant and usually rendered flush left in smaller fonts. A common convention is to begin the body of a document with an H1 header, e.g.

<h1>Introduction to HTML+</h1>
Header names should be appropriate to the following section of the document, while the title should cover the document as a whole. There are no restrictions on the sequence of headers, e.g. you could use a level three header following a level one header.Header and section elements can take an identifier, unique to the current document, for use as named destinations of hypertext links. This is specified with the ID attribute, e.g.

<h1 id="intro">Introduction to HTML+</h1>
This allows authors to create hypertext links to particular sections of documents. It is a good idea to use something obvious when creating an identifier, to help jog your memory at a later date. WYSIWYG editors should automatically generate identifiers. In this case, they should provide a point and click mechanism for defining links so that authors don't need to deal explicitly with identifier names. Automatic generation of IDs for headers, paragraphs and other major elements is important as it makes it easier for other people to create links to your document, by ensuring that there are plenty of ID attributes present as potential destinations.

Should we support headers for which the level is implicitly defined by nestable section elements?*2 We could also support autonumbering of headers. Unfortunately, on further investigation these ideas proved trickier than thought at first, and so have been dropped from this draft.


HTML+ Discussion Document - November 8, 1993

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