What is HTML?
In lay terms it is the language that speaks to your browser. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is pretty standard. The browsers are not. There are browser wars going on as we speak. Each company wants to one up the other so they do not always stick to the standard code. This makes the job of web designer difficult at best. Right now I design mainly for Internet Explorer 5.0 and above. Simply because the features are great and most of the public use that browser. That may change by tomorrow afternoon but for now that is what goes here.A web page has a certain format or text document that will eventually be uploaded to your web domain (web host) that in turn serves your web page to the public.
Below is the very basic web document.
I will color code the document in hopes it will make things a bit more clear and easier to understand.
This page will look like this when you view it on a website. Notice that only the text between the body tags will be what is viewed by the public.
Notice the tags, flags or commands come in pairs
an opening tag (<HTML>)
and a closing tag(</HTML>)
We seldom deviate from this practice....most of the time there must be an opening tag and a closing tag. I stress this because if by chance you leave one of these tags out the browser being a stupid creature that can not think for itself will no doubt give your page a different look than what your original intent might be.
Every standard HTML document MUST HAVE a pair of:
HTML tags to designate it is a HTML document.
HEAD tags that contain hidden data that help register your pages in the search engines. These are the back stage production instructions for the server and browser so to speak.
TITLE Make sure each of your pages has a <title> tag that provides a concise, helpful description of the page's contents. Most search engines display the text of your <title> tag as the "headline" for your entry in the search results list. Most spiders also extract search keywords from your <title> tag, so your page will be more likely to reach its intended audience if it contains words that your audience is likely to use when searching for the information on your page
BODY tags that contain the page data. Everything you want to show on your page goes here.
Each of these pairs must be bracketed with
<......>opening
</......>closing
Example:
<BODY>opening
</BODY>closing
Okay we are ready to start.
You are going to create a html template...open wordpad...I say use wordpad rather than notepad because it will copy the code in the colors as shown above and if you work in these colors I think it will be a bit easier to understand what you are doing.
DO NOT use Microsoft word or any other processor as the code you write will likely be changed to something you can not fix.
Just in case you are new to the computer and you are saying where the heck is wordpad?
On your taskbar:
go to start.....programs.....accessories....wordpad.....voile up pops your wordpad window ready to have something entered into it.
