Alternative text describes an image that you have inserted. Alternative text is included for the following reasons:

	Some of your visitors may be using text only browsers.
	A visitor may have turned off images so that a file will load faster.
	Sometimes browsers don't display images correctly.
	Sometimes images don't display because the links aren't working properly.

You should always use two attributes with any <IMG> tag: the SRC and ALT attributes, both of which are required. The ALT attribute is used to describe the image in some way. For any browser that isn't displaying images, the alternate text contained inside that ALT attribute is displayed instead. Here's an example of an image element using alternate text:

<IMG SRC="images/mickeymouse.jpg" ALT="Mickey Mouse">

If you use this tag, browsers can display the words "Mickey Mouse" instead of displaying an image.

You can speed the loading time of images by specifying an image's height and width. As the browser loads the page, it notes the height and width attributes and leaves that much space for the image. Next, it lays out the remaining text, and then it goes back and fills in the image. To specify image height and width, add the HEIGHT= and WIDTH= attributes in the <IMG> tag.

One overwhelming advantage to adding the height and width to an <IMG> tag is that when you do specify the image size for all of your images, browsers take a lot less time to render your page. That's because the browser can determine the layout of the page without having to retrieve each image separately to find out what size it is.

However, there are two drawbacks to specifying the height and width:

	The height and width are presentational attributes, so they ideally belong in a style sheet instead of in your <IMG> tag.
	If you have a very small image and specify its height and width, then Navigator and IE won't be able to fit the alternate text inside the small image box for those users not displaying images.

By default, images align on the left, with accompanying text appearing on the same line. The alignment options within the <IMG> tag override other alignment settings. Setting an image to ALIGN="RIGHT" and then, the accompanying text to ALIGN="RIGHT" forces the text to be flush against the image with a ragged left margin. Certain alignment options such as TOP, MIDDLE, and BOTTOM offer more in the context of small images.

When you align images with an alignment attribute, there are two entirely separate behaviors - Inline Images and Floating Images.

To align an image in a line, choose one of the following attributes for the image element:

ALIGN="TOP"
ALIGN="MIDDLE"
ALIGN="BOTTOM"

To make an image "float" to the left or right side and paragraphs to wrap around the image, choose one of the following attributes:

ALIGN="LEFT"
ALIGN="RIGHT"

You can control the border around an image with the BORDER=attribute. In most browsers, by default, the border is visible only on images that are used as links. To turn the border off for all images, add the BORDER="0" attribute to the <IMG> tag. You can increase the border width around an image by increasing the value in the BORDER=attribute.

	If you use the BORDER="1" attribute in an <IMG> tag, then a thin border will appear around the image.
	An image border will always be colored black in IE4, while in Navigator it's the same color as the text color.
	If you use a style sheet, you can specify whatever color you desire for image borders.
	An image's border width does not count toward determining an image's height or width.

Example:

<A HREF="http"//www.bamm.org/."><IMG SRC="sbamm.jpg" BORDER="10"></A>