HTML can be written using any ASCII text editor (Windows' Notepad or Macintosh
Simpletext). It should not be written with programs like Microsoft Word which will
insert extra characters into the code causing the web page to appear improperly.
2)
All web pages must be enclosed in special tags which must basically have this
structure:
The Head tags must contain the Title tags, which are the only thing always needed in the Head tags.
4)
The majority of the visible text and pictures are coded in the Body tags.
5)
3)The web browser ignores extra spaces that you put in the code. If you put in two spaces
between words it will be ignored (not appear in the browser). This includes carriage returns
or the Enter key. Technically everything can be written on one line, but to make it easier
for a person to read you can put extra spaces or returns.
6)
Most tags come in pairs. Notice that the second tag, the ending tag, has a slash "/" in its tag.
Thus the HTML tag, which defines the code as an HTML document, must end with an tag telling the browser
where the HTML code ends. The Head tag, which houses the Title usually, must have an ending Head tag.
The Body which houses the main part of the code for the text and pictures also has a beginning and end tag.
7)
When viewing a web page, correctly coded tags will not appear in the browser,
but the
text and pictures will. That is why you won't actually see the
<BODY> </BODY>
tags
when viewing a web page.
8)
HTML is not case sensitive and can be written in either uppercase or lowercase
letters. Many people used to write in uppercase letters to differentiate it from the
actual text that they want it to appear. It makes it easier to read for programmers.
Recently people are designing new code which
only supports lowercase text. It doesn't really matter unless you want to be able to
make your web pages appear in XML devices like wireless WAP Internet devices. XML is supposed to be the new standard and stricter web page programming language evolving from HTML.
Basically I recommend just doing it in small case since that is the trend.
9)
To put a Title on the top your the browser bar put the name of your title between the Title tags like so:
<title>Learn to make a HTML web page in about 15 minutes or less</title>
Be sure to include one beginning tag and one ending tag.
10)
The most common tag to identify a paragraph is the <p> </p> tags. Type text between the <p> </p> tags to begin a new paragraph. In the web browser, paragraphs are shown separated by one blank line in between each paragraph. Paragraphs are not shown indented. Here is an example of three paragraphs:
<p> This is the first paragraph.</p>
<p> This is the code for the second paragraph.</p>
<p> This is more code. This makes a third paragraph.</p>
11)
The <A HREF=""> </A> tags create hyperlinks, which allows you to link to other pages. The format for doing this is
<A HREF="URL.html">Text for you to click on identifying the URL</A>
Put the URL, location of the webpage that the browser should look up, between the double quotes and put some words between the two tags to give you some actual words to click on. When you click the link it will start by looking in the current directory first. That means if you are saved a web page to your hard drive that you made called 'coolpage.html' and want to link it 'page2.html', which is in a different folder, you need to specify the path folder.
For instance, if the document coolpage.html was in folder called "Computers" and you also had a separate folder called "Cars" for all your web pages about automobiles (just to keep organized) then to access the car webpage from the the computer folder you would have to type the code
<A HREF="Cars/page2.html">This is my Car Web Page</A>
To give you another example, when linking online, let's say to Yahoo!, remember to put the necessary http:// extensions. For instance:
<A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com">Yahoo!</A>
12)
To put in images use the single tag <IMG SRC=""> For example
<IMG SRC="picture.gif">
or if it's an online picture type in something like
Just remember to put the URL or actual hyperlink location to picture between the double quotes.
Well that's it for now! As a final note, check out this code to get an idea of what HTML should look like:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> My most awesome page by Daniel Smith </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P> This is the beginning of my ultimate web page about video games, computers, and cars.</P>
<P> I'm going to describe the <A HREF="porsche.html">Porsche</A> and <A HREF="http://www.bmw.com">BMW</A> here on my page.</P>
<P> Here is a picture of my favorite cars: <IMG SRC="car.jpg">.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Thanks for visiting this page! I'll show you more later. Don't forget to go to the Common HTML Tags Table for more tags you can use.
