[SUGGESTION] Amendment to a.a-a FAQ re: HTML

There has recently been numerous discussions in this newsgroup about
publishing ascii art on the Web. The following questions have been
asked several times, and should therefore IMHO be added to the FAQ.

I hope that these FAQ entries will not only help new artists make
their work available on the WWW, but will also reduce the number of
such questions - and the apparently flammable and somewhat off-topic
threads which they often start - in this newsgroup.

The answers which I have provided are intended to be a reasonable
compromise between brevity and thoroughness. They answer the question
and mention potential caveats, but do not offer any more extensive
explanations which IMHO belong to other newsgroups. Any suggestions
and/or improvements are welcome.

I felt that in a matter like this it would be very helpful to provide
examples, despite the extra space they take. I have used as an example
an eagle by Shanaka Dias - I hope he does not object.

---(cut here)---------------------------------------------------------

 Q: How can I put ascii art on a WWW page?

 A: To embed ascii art in HTML, first replace all occurrences of "&" in the
    picture with "&amp;" and of "<" with "&lt;". Then put the HTML tag
    <PRE> before the picture and </PRE> after it.

 Original:
      ____     _____
     /  \  _.-'_.-'
     \  _\/   _/
   ___)/   __<
  <'-;:\_  _\
      '; \_\
       >/-,\
     ""`  |_\ snd
 HTML version:
<PRE>
      ____     _____
     /  \  _.-'_.-'
     \  _\/   _/
   ___)/   __&lt;
  &lt;'-;:\_  _\
      '; \_\
       >/-,\
     ""`  |_\ snd
</PRE>

 Q: How can I change the font in which ascii art is shown on my WWW page?

 A: There are several ways. The recommended, though not yet very widely
    supported, way is to use Style Sheets. Just add the following in the
    HEAD section of your page:

<STYLE type="text/css"><!--
  PRE { font-family: "Best font", "2nd best font", "etc.", monospaced; }
--></STYLE>

    You can list as many fonts as you like, just keep "monospaced" as the
    last one. Note: Strictly speaking specifying a font is not pure ascii
    art. However this _is_ a FAQ, and as long as you don't use proportional
    fonts the picture will still be viewable as pure ascii. Remember NOT to
    post HTML in the newsgroup.

---(cut here)---------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Ilmari Karonen (ilt...@sci.fi)
http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/

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|  _______  |
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|___________|

//O\\

|\/\/\/|
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C      _)
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/____\

|HHHHH/"\"\HHHHHHH|
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|HHHb|`.\/\,'|HHHH|
|HHHHHb/\/\/|HHHHH|
|"""""""""""""""""|
| |"" /\ \  / |"" |
| |__/--\ \/  __| |

  _________
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//@@@\ /@@@\\
\\@@@/ \@@@//
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    | - |
     \_/  jrjc

  ______
 /|_||_\`.__
(   _    _ _\
=`-(_)--(_)-'
         hjw

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