HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language.
How should a web page be created or written?
The easiest way to create a web page is with an application like Front Page. However there are disadvantages of using software like this.
The program will add its own extra code and leave a lot of leftover code in the page.
You will learn less, which makes it difficult to find errors left by the program being used.
Another way to write an HTML document is to use a word processor like MS Word. This does give you more tools like spell checker and thesaurus. You must always save the document as text. If you forget to choose "save as" the document will have formatting that will not generate a webpage.
And last but not least, the good old text editor. An application like Notepad. This page was written with Notepad. Notepad always saves as text. There is no extra formatting to prevent the page to looking th way the writer intended. The writer who uses Notepad has at least learned the very basics of HTML code. When the page does not look the way the writer wants it to, he can easily spot and resolve the problem. The basics are not really complicated. As you will soon see.
Once writing or editing is completed or you would like to view page, save as an html document. If you have been using a word processor, open the document in a text editor. Then save as: "filename.html". Then you may open the document using your web browser to see what it looks like.
What are flags?
Flags are commands. They tell the web browser how to display a document. They are easy to spot. They are text surrounded by: < and >. The first one you will see on a web page is:<HTML>. This tells the browser it is an HTML document.
To see the flags used to create a web page, you can view the source of any page on the internet. Just open the page in your browser like normal. Then click on "View" and choose "Source." You can even do it to this page. Although, most (75% to 85%) of the code you will see for this page will be for that tiny ad at the top. If you would prefer to see something a little simpler click here to view a simple page and its source or HTML code.
Flags must have a begin command and an end command, although there are some exceptions. For instance <B>, tells the browser that from this point on, bold text should be displayed. This flag </B> ends the bold text command. All text betwen these two flags will be bold. For example, this:<B>Hi, I'm Bold.</B>, will display as: Hi, I'm Bold.
