The quick and dirty guide to bad HTML for your cache page.

Bold: <b>text</b> creates:
text

Italics <i>text</i> creates:
text

Line Break:
This is a line<br>break creates:
This is a line
break

Paragraph:
This is a paragraph<p>break creates:
This is a paragraph

break

Paragraphs part 2:
The "right" way to write a paragraph is really <p>This is a paragraph</p> It really doesn't matter though.

Fixed size text:
<pre>12345
2 O O
3 >
4 \__/
5 U </pre> creates:

12345
2 O O
3  >
4 \__/
5   U
Note that what html does is compress spaces. If it sees two spaces, it treats it as a single space.
<pre> tags are made to deal with that problem. Another way to deal with it is to use a &nbsp; tag.
&nbsp; means non breaking space. You can pile up the non-breaking spaces and it will show them all and not replace any of them with a line break.
There are 3 more of these types of charaters that are very useful and a lot more you probably don't need.
&amp; creates a & symbol
&lt; creates a < symbol (and is used a lot in creating this web page)
&gt; creates a > symbol
&deg; creates a ° symbol (46&deg; = 46° - now ain't that useful)

Font type: <font face="comic sans ms">I like comic sans</font> creates:
I like comic sans
(This assumes the person looking at the page has the font on their pc. If they don't, they won't see any difference)

Font size: <font size=4>I like it big</font> creates:
I like it big

Font size part 2: <font size=2>I like it small</font> creates:
I like it small

Font size: <font color=green>I like it green</font> creates:
I like it green

Fonts combined: <b><font face="comic sans ms" color=green size=4>Mean green fighting machine</font></b> creates:
Mean green fighting machine

Note that all the font stuff is contained in one tag and the one tag is inside the other.
<b><i>text</i></b> works but <b><i>text</b></i> doesn't.

Graphics: <img src="http://nozen.com/geo/sp_ken.gif"> creates:

Background: <BODY BACKGROUND="http://nozen.com/geo/hpbackground.jpg" BGPROPERTIES="fixed"> creates the background seen on http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=106531

Link:<a href="http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=106531">Link</a> creates: Link

Ordered Lists: <ol><li>Bob</li><li>Carol</li><li>Ted</li><li>Alice</li></ol> creates:

  1. Bob
  2. Carol
  3. Ted
  4. Alice

Unordered Lists: <ul><li>Bob</li><li>Carol</li><li>Ted</li><li>Alice</li></ul> creates:

Note that the only difference is ol or ul in the tag.

Colors: If you want colors you don't know the name of, you can use hex codes. http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/color_codes/ has a nice list you can use and is a good site for beginning HTML overall.

More Special Characters: I ♥ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/special_characters/

Everything else: If I haven't covered it here, you can probably find it at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/