Images Are Special
Image files are multimedia elements that you can reference with anchors in your document for separate download and display by the browser. But, unlike other multimedia, standard HTML and XHTML have an explicit provision for image display “inline” with the text, and images can serve as intricate maps of hyperlinks. That’s because there is some consensus in the industry concerning image file formats — specifically, GIF and JPEG — and the graphical browsers have built-in decoders that integrate those image types into your document.[13]
Inline Images
The HTML/XHTML tag for
inline images is <img>; its required
src
attribute is the URL of the GIF or JPEG image you want to insert in
the document. [<img>]
The browser separately loads images and places them into the text
flow as if the image were some special, albeit sometimes very large,
character. Normally, that means the browser aligns the bottom of the
image to the bottom of the current line of text. You can change that
with the special <img>
align
attribute, whose value you set to put the image at the
top
, middle, or
bottom of adjacent text. Examine Figure 2-2 through Figure 2-4 for the
image alignment you prefer. Of course, wide images may take up the
whole line and hence break the text flow. You can also place an image
by itself, by including preceding and following division, paragraph,
or line-break tags.
Figure 2-2. An inline image aligned with the bottom of the text (default)
Figure 2-3. An inline image ...
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