Backgrounds

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Backgrounds

Backgrounds can be either:

Plain white

Very simple, very effective, totally uncluttered, and text shows up against it very clearly indeed! But possibly a bit boring, unless it was for technical documents.

This page has a plain white background. <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff">

Coloured

Sensitive one-colour backgrounds can look good. Pastel colours work best. Primary colours are much too bright and gary! (Would you decorate your dining room with it?) Black, or dark colours are too dismal, and also require the use of white a light colour text. They are hard to read. I have only ever used a black background once. It was a page about underground coal mining. Even then I used a pale grey text rather than stark white.

White background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff">

 Black background

White text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000">
Pastel green background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#c9ed87">

 Green background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#008000">
Pastel blue background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#a8f2ef">

 Blue background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#0000ff">
Pink background (if you must)

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text
White text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#fea9fc">

 Red background

Black text
Dark Blue text
don't use normal blue as that is for links
Green text
Brown text
Yellow text
White text

<BODY BGCOLOR="#ff0000">

I know which ones I don't like.

Background Images

Below are the two background graphics I use on my freepages site. The top one is only used for the "cover" in index.htm The other is used for all other pages.

The actual background extends the whole width of the screen and a little more. The total length of the graphic is 1024 pixels. (Even the one with a white background).

Why that long? Because different people have their computer graphics set up at different resolutions.

640 x 480 the old standard VGA, clumsy in comparison with
800 x 600 much better
1024 x 768 fine detail but everything too small for my eyes.

But, that background graphic length of 1024 pixels caters for the "widest" screen setup. Without it, the graphic would repeat itself again at the right, with another row of spiral binders!

Notice that the background images are very thin. They don't need to be deeper, because a background image repeats itself automatically down the page.

Here is the background graphic which I use for the FreeREG web pages on Rootsweb:

This background graphic is 640 pixels wide and 100 pixels high.  (Just 3kb in file size).
It is based on the FreeREG logo:

(Which happens to have its own background of an entry from a parish register for the marriage of one of my NEEP ancestors in the very early 1700s). Both graphics were created using Paintshop Pro.

There is a little problem with "left side" background images though, as text overlays the image! (Like this) We have to use a little trick to prevent that happening. That involves the use of tables on a web page.

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