How To Create
Your First Web Page This HTML Tutorial is about how to create your first Web page by coding HTML using a text editor (such as NotePad) and then viewing the document using your Web browser.To begin a Web page you will open a simple text editor like Windows NotePad for the Windows operating system or SimpleText for the Macintosh. Once you have this simple text editor open to a new blank document you will begin your web document by typing a few items I shall discuss in a moment. When you reach the closing part of this file I will ask you to save it to a floppy disk with a filename of firstpage.html. This is discussed below, in the section titled Saving the File. The method of opening the file using your Web browser is discussed in the section titled Open and View the File. Let's begin. The first thing you are to type in the text editor work area is a left angle bracket, < the letters HTML, and the right angle bracket, >. The symbols and letters should look like this: <HTML><HTML> is the opening for any HTML Web Page. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. By having coded the <HTML> the browser will know which language it is to handle. What is HTML? is an article containing additional information about HTML. A lot of information of your own preference is placed into a coded document. The term document refers to what is being coded and typed in the text editor. The term page refers to what the browser displays for the viewer or what you see in your browser window when your browser has opened your coded document. Try not to confuse the two terms. Think of the document as what is being coded and saved as a .html file and page refer to the Web page seen by the user from the Web browser window. When it eventually comes time to end your document, the last thing that should be coded is the closing </HTML>. Notice the forward slash this time in front of the HTML letters. The forward slash precedes letters to close HTML "tags". Many elements have a beginning tag and an ending tag. The only difference between the two is that the ending tag has a slash right after the left angle bracket, <. So far what you have coded looks like this: <HTML> </HTML>Nothing should actually be visible yet in the browser window until later when more HTML "tags" have been added. The Head SectionAfter opening your document with <HTML> you will need to touch the Enter key to begin a new line and code <HEAD>. <HEAD> begins the HEAD section of the document, a part of the document above the BODY. The <HEAD> section contains a lot of information and a title but not the information nor the title which will appear on your actual Web page. No, the <HEAD> section contains information for search engines and document-finding, elements called META tags, which you will learn about much later. So, getting back to the basics, I want to begin another new line after you have coded the <HEAD>. The new line should be <TITLE>My First Web Page</TITLE>.(This is not the title that will be seen on your page but rather is the title which will be used by search "spiders", "robots", search engines. You can read more about search engines on the Searching the Internet page.) Begin a new line. Code </HEAD>. This closes the HEAD section. So far, (before anything has appeared on your Web "page", your first Web document looks like this: <HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My First Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>

</HTML> Do you see how the HEAD element begins and ends inside the shell of the beginning and ending HTML element. This is important: In any Web document the title (beginning and ending title tags and the information in between) is nested between the beginning and ending HEAD tags. Also, the HEAD section is nested between the beginning and ending HTML tags. The HEAD section is opened and closed before you can open the BODY section. It is the BODY section where "everything happens" that you view on a Web page. All of the coding is called a Web document and only what is actually viewed is called a Web page. Now that the </HEAD> has already been coded, let's move on to the BODY section. The Body SectionSimilar to the HTML element having an opening and a closing, and the HEAD element having an opening and a closing, so too does the BODY element have an opening and a closing. It is coded like this: <BODY> </BODY>Whatever you now code into your document, (inside the shell of the body element) will be viewed on your Web page. So far your total coding in the text editor looks like this:<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My First Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY> </BODY>
</HTML> Students new to HTML will often put the tags in the wrong order. To overcome this problem, I created the "HTML Snow/Penguin" to help me remember the order of the tags when I first took an HTML class. Here is my HTML Snow/Penguin:
The above blue coding is the completed HTML document template. Every HTML page you create will come from this basic outline or template. Remember that the Document title (which is not viewed) goes in the HEAD section. It is for the search engines and spiders so your page can be indexed. Notice that I left some space between <BODY> and </BODY>. I just happen to like a little bit of extra space to work in when I am coding in the body section of any Web document. I might point out now that this "open space" between coded lines in HTML will not have open lines on the viewed page because the browser converts all "white space" into a single space. In other words, I could double-space or triple-space all of my lines of coding but the browser will not show double-spacing nor triple-spacing. The extra spaces that you create with the space bar or the Enter key are "ignored" by the browser, EXCEPT for one single space. It is NOT TRUE that the browser "ignores white space in the document" or allthewordswouldruntogether. So you see, the browser is honoring one empty white space between words. I cannot get two or three spaces between words unless I code one extra non-breaking space, &nbsp; for each space extra I want. Let's put something inside the BODY section so that you can view it with your browser. Making A TitleA title (in the BODY section) for your first Web page is coded like this:<H1>My First Web Page</H1>If the title is too simple in the example for your liking just substitue a title of your own -- I just used this as an example. Here, take a peek at what it would look like in a regular Web page the way it is currently coded. I would really like to have the title centered. I could do this in one of two ways. The older HTML 3.2 specification allows the use of <CENTER> before the title and before the <H1>. After the title and after the </H1> you would then close the </CENTER>
Here is the code: <HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My First Web Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<CENTER><H1>My First Web Page</H1></CENTER>

</BODY>
</HTML> Take a look at the new example #2 with the title now centered. The newer technologies of HTML 4.0 require that you do NOT use the <CENTER></CENTER> tags but use <DIV ALIGN="center"> and </DIV> in place of the centering pair of "tags". (See code below):<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My First Web Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV ALIGN="center"><H1>My First Web Page</H1></DIV>

</BODY>
</HTML> Whether your code is single spaced or double-spaced or has any extra space at all does NOT matter because the browser ignores any extra spacing within the coded HTML document. I often place extra space between paragraphs or between page sections that I am coding within the document just so that my code will be easier to read and to edit when I come back to it later. Now you have learned that the use of <CENTER> with </CENTER> is the older way to center text in an HTML document and that the same result will be obtained by using the newer <DIV ALIGN="center"> with </DIV>. <note: browser versions="" (of="" netscapte="" navigator="" and="" internet="" explorer)="" older="" than="" 4.0="" will="" not="" support="" the="" newer="" centering="" method="" but="" i="" use="" this="" nonetheless="" by="" way="" of="" thinking="" that="" browsers="" are="" now="" being="" replaced="" versions.="" <="" div=""> Making A Background ColorNow let's make a background color for your page. This is something new because now you are going to have to type an attribute inside the BODY element and you will give the attribute a value. It sounds difficult but I will explain it a step at a time. An attribute is just something additional than enhances the way the browser views an element. Color Charts of RGB values

Note:
When I use the term "HTML element" I am referring to the sum of the opening "tag", the contents of the page between the opening and closing "tag" and the actual closing "tag" itself. "Tag" is just a slang expression used my many HTML coders to refer to what's between the angle brackets: < >. A "paragraph element" begins with <P>, has content, and ends with </P>. The BODY element began with <BODY>. Using your text editor, place the blinking cursor (I-beam) between the Y and the right angle bracket. Space once and type BGCOLOR="" then allow the right angle bracket to close this attribute for BACKGROUND COLOR. You used double quotes, I hope. Between the double quotes you will place either an accepted named color, such as red, white, blue, green, yellow, goldenrod, cornsilk, etc. OR you will have to look up some RGB Color Values for HTML Authors values which each begin with an octothorp (#). Find a color you like from one of these Color Charts of RGB Color Values for now. When your typing of that BODY tag is completed and has a color value such as <BODY BGCOLOR="cornsilk"> or <BODY BGCOLOR="#FF6342">, you will need to save the file changes in your text editior, File,Save. When you return to the browser you will need to either click on Refresh or Reload to "renew" the browser window to show the new changes you made in the Editor program. Once you renew the browser window, you should now see your page with a background color. I made a page with a "cornsilk" background to show you. Click here to see it. I coded <BODY BGCOLOR="cornsilk">. You will want to use the RGB Hexidecimal Color Values when you get particular about wanting a certain specific color on your web page. Free background texturesSaving The FileWhen you are through typing code into your simple text editor such as NotePad or SimpleText, save the file by selecting Save As and naming the file firstpage.html. Before selecting a location to save this file to, be sure to change the text selection under the file name to the setting that says "All Files". You will need to put .html at the end of the filename such as naming it firstpage.html. Select a location such as a floppy disk on the A: drive. Do NOT SAVE as text but select ALL files. Again, Click on File in NotePad or another simple text editor. Select SaveAs. (Once the file has been initially saved the very first time, do not use SaveAs anymore, but use File, Save for all subsequent saving. You should also save your work about every 5 minutes to prevent any unexpected data loses from power problems.)
BEFORE clicking on OK to save the file, be sure the first time it is saved that you change the text setting (line under the file name in the SaveAs dialog box of the Windows 95/98 Operating System) to "All Files". You will be saving this as All Files so you have to include the .html extension as part of your filename. Select a location to save it to such as the A:\ floppy disk. Now Click on OK to save it. Once it is saved, close the file. Open And View The FileNow open your browser window while you are not on-line. Click on File, Open. Select Browse. Select the A: drive or the location where you saved your firstpage.html file. Double click on it or select open. (Let your browser open the file.) When done correctly you should be able to view the title of your first web page. Note:
An alternate and easier way to open the file for viewing by the browser is just to double click on the filename from Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer will automatically open a browser to view the document you just saved. If you did not close that document after saving it you will get an error when you try to open it in the browser window. Once your Web page appears in the Internet Explorer browser window you can edit it by selecting View, Source from the browser menu bar. I caution you that you cannot edit a file when online and the file is being delivered to your browser from a Web server. You can only edit files on your own computer such as from the floppy disk. Save any changes to your document and switch back to the browser to click on either REFRESH or RELOAD before your changes will be visible. Only the first time you saved this file did you use SaveAs. When you can see your title in the browser window, I want you to try to click on View, then Source in order to see the text editor coding of your HTML document. When you type something new into this NotePad and SimpleText file (the simple text editor file), you are to select File, Save for each subsequent change or addition to your code. If you only have two files open, your browser and the simple text file, you may use the shortcut of Alt + Tab to toggle back and forth between the browser window and the text editor coding. In order to see typed coding changes after you have saved the changes with File, Save you will need to toggle back with ALT + tab (windows users) and in the browser menu bar, select Refresh or the Reload option in order to refresh the browser window. Without refreshing or reloading the window, your saved changes will not be seen. Once you begin coding your HTML document, you will SAVE and REFRESH or RELOAD after each change, to see how the change looks. All of this is done off-line using your browser in the off-line mode. You do not need to be on the Internet to write HTML documents and to view them. The next lesson about formatting text is quite a bit easier. </note: browser> |
Lesson 2: Headings and Special Effects
HTML Tutorial If you are new to this HTML tutorial and did not read the previous HTML tutorials, I talked about making a Web document (coding HTML) using a text editor.
Examples of text editors are NotePad (for Windows), SimpleText(for Mac), EditPlus(for Windows), BBEdit(for Mac),and Vim for Linux.
Amaya, free from the World Wide Web Consortium is an Editor/Browser.Changing Sizes of Titles and Making Paragraphs,
Special Effects, and Line Breaks This section is really a fun part of learning about HTML 3.2. Text properties you can control include the text color, the text size within the constraints of <H1> through <H6>, and the face which is the font type. The largest heading size (without using style sheets) is the H1 heading coded this way:<H1>Very Large </H1> It begins with the <H1> "tag" and ends with the </H1> "tag". Essentially the beginning and the ending looks just the same except the ending "tag" has the forward slash in front of it. This will pretty much be the rule with the forward slash in front of all ending "tags" in HTML coding. I hate the word "tag" since the H1 heading is really considered to be an "element". But you see, the "element" is made up of all of the parts, the beginning "tag" and the ending "tag" and the text in between is all grouped together and called the H1 "element". The H2 heading is coded: <H2>This is an H2 Heading</H2> This is an H3 Heading: <H3>This is an H3 Heading</H3> Sometimes you will want to put a line break into a heading so that part of your heading continues on the next row. The line break is done by coding <BR>. There is no closing "tag" required for a line break. Remember that with headings you must use the closing "tag" that looks like the opening "tag" but has the forward slash in front of it. The opening "tag" for the H4 heading is <H4> and the closing "tag" for the H4 heading is </H4>. It looks like this:<H4>This is the H4 heading<BR> with a break in the middle</H4>Anytime you want to force the browser to make a line break just code <BR>. This can be done with all text formatting, not just in headings, but in paragraphs and table cells as well. More About the <BR> TagThe <BR> line break tag will not appear on the Web page but the result of the <BR> tag will be seen as a line break. Does that make sense? The "tag" <BR> itself will not be seen.
You do not have to hit the Enter key for a line return just because you coded a forced line break. White space in the Web document where you code is empty white space which does not appear on the actual Web page. Only when you code the <BR> tag, will the line of text actually halt and begin anew on the next line. Without this tag, typing word-wraps inside whatever "container" (like a table cell) the text is being coded within. In the document, a line break can occur anywhere but in order to force a line to break where you want to on the Web page you should code the <BR> tag. If you work with tables of a specific width any text placed into a <TD></TD> element pair will be constrained by the width of the column or the table cell, depending upon how you code your table. You will get to understand this better when studying about HTML tables.Beginning and Ending A Paragraph, Boldface, Underline, <EM>, and Italic TextA paragraph begins with <P> and ends with </P>. To make certain text appear bold use the <B> to make text bold and</B> to turn off the boldface type. The <EM> will emphasize type and </EM> will turn off the emphasis. If your type is already a boldface these effects will not increase the amount of boldface (character width or darkness). You may turn on and off underlining text with the <U>underlining tags</U>. Lastly, you may use the <I>italic effect</I>.Teletype Text with <TT>, Subscripts and Superscripts<TT>Teletyped text is monospaced. This text is useful for formatting money in dollars and cents so the decimal "lines-up" in the table you use.</TT>
To make characters subscripted or superscripted use the <SUB></SUB> or the <SUP></SUP> such as coding H<SUB>2</SUB>0 to write H20.
To write exponents use the <SUP></SUP> "tags", such as before and after the 4 in this next example: 24=16. In other words, just code:
2<SUP>4</SUP>=16.<CITE>, <BLINK>, <BIG>,
<SMALL>, and <BASEFONT>If you are citing a particular reference or book use the <CITE></CITE> element ("tags" and content) such as:
The following information was found in the <CITE>San Francisco Chronicle</CITE> newspaper.
Avoid special effects like the <BLINK> tags which are proprietary rather than multiplatform. <BIG> increases the font to the next larger size and <SMALL> decreases font size.
The <BASEFONT> tag will allow you to set the font size that the browser will use to render the normal document text. Size is the only attribute of the <BASEFONT> tag. Turn it off before using a <FONT> tag. When you are working in NotePad or a different text editor program and are coding HTML code, it does not matter a bit about "white space" in the coded document because the browser will ignore any extra "white space" in your typing. The browser will not put that extra "white space" onto your Web page. What will be on the Web page is the browser's interpretation of how that page should be rendered (interpreted) based on certain HTML elements ("tags") that you have coded.Other Factors Affecting HTML Text and TitlesBesides pure HTML code affecting HTML Text and HTML Titles the styling technology of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will also affect how your Web page looks... Purists believe that the HTML tags should only be responsible for content while any styling such as size of font, color of font and even spacing, line-height and layering should be done using Cascading Style Sheets rules. To say Cascading Style Sheets rules is not a grammatical error but the technology itself is called Cascading Style Sheets. In Review, take a look at relative sizes of these headings:H1H2H3H4H5H6Ultimately, the Web Author who is familiar with and is using Cascading Style Sheets rules will be able to control the color and the size of the Heading element content from either external or internal style sheets or from inline style rules. See Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets |
HTML: Formatting Text, Lesson 3 by Cheryl Gribble Formatting Text Size, Color and Font FaceHTML lacks a lot of font styles and characteristics that a lot of text editors have. You cannot format a Web document using HTML as nicely as you could format a page with a word processing program. What you can do with HTML is to specify certain font sizes (1 through 7), select a color from an RGB Color Reference and vary your text colors on your page without a graphics program. You may also select a font-family or specify whether you want serif or sans-serif font face. If the font that you select is not on the users computer when they are viewing your Web page, their browser will select its own default font to replace your selection so you must know that your choice with HTML will not be etched into stone but will vary from one computer or browser type to another. Size 7 abcdefg...
Size 6 abcdefg...
Size 5 abcdefg...
Size 4 abcdefg...
Size 3 abcdefg...
Size 2 abcdefg...
Size 1 abcdefg...The first line above was coded like this:
<FONT SIZE="7" COLOR="red">Size 7 abcdefg...</FONT> The size 6 line was coded this way:
<FONT SIZE="6" COLOR="orange">Size 6 abcdefg...</FONT> The smallest line above was coded as follows:
<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="black">Size 1 abcdefg...</FONT>You can also change font sizes by specifying + or - numbers, as in <FONT SIZE =+1>This is one size larger</FONT> than this.<FONT SIZE=-1>This is one size smaller.</FONT>
This method will not work if you use a size 7 already and try to go a size larger. You are still constrained by sizes 1 to 7 although if you are using a size 3 then you could certainly use a +2, a +3, or a +4 to increase your font size as in
<FONT SIZE=+4>VERY BIG</FONT>More examples of font size, but with Cascading Style SheetsA Word About Font C O L O R !COLOR is an attribute of the FONT tag.
<FONT COLOR="red">changes the text to red</FONT> The equivalent RGB color value which represents "red" is #FF0000. You could have also achieved red text by coding
<FONT COLOR="#FF0000">red text</FONT>. The color attribute value of "red" and the color attribute value of "#FF0000" achieved the same results. The value of "#FF0000" is called an RGB color value and the number is always 6 digits, often called a "hexadecimal color value", or "hex value" for short. RGB stands for Red-Green-Blue. While not all colors have names, certainly all colors do have their own specific hexidecimal value (RGB color value). I look up the numbers I need from online references such as color charts. I also need to mention that when you place either a named color or a value of color (preceded by #), that these values should be coded into parentheses.
For example COLOR="#FF0000" or COLOR="red". The named color is in quotes and does NOT use the octothorp, #. The RGB color value MUST use the octothorp, # before the number containing 6 digits. Both the octothorp and the 6 number are together inside one set of quotes. I downloadeded a free trial version of a color selector utility from http://www.tucows.com/. I use a program called WinZip from http://www.winzip.com/ to unzip or open the files after I had downloaded the software. These compression programs have a help feature and many have little teaching lessons with them to help you get started.Hitmill.com has 5 pages now with RGB Hexidecimal color values for Web authors. The index to the color pages is available at http://www.hitmill.com/html/rgbcolorvalues.html. Place the font size property along with the color property into only one set of font "tags" making up the font element.
<FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FF00FF">This is the result of coding both the size and the color property.</FONT>
Note: I just put in the font tags on purpose to illustrate the coding. The actual markup characters do not appear on the Web page but only appear in the HTML document (the coding area). The Web page is the viewing area of the browser and it what the user sees on his own machine but the Web document is what you see when you are coding to create a Web page. The actual typing and coding is not the Web page. When the document is interpreted by the browser and displayed, it is now a Web page. Try not to confuse the HTML document and the Web page. Think of the Web page as being the result of what a browser does with an HTML document. Each time you code changes of any kind in your HTML document be sure to do a File, Save. When you switch back to your browser to view your changes you will not see the changes unless you REFRESH or RELOAD the page from the browser menu. If your page suddenly has disappeared it is usually from a simple mistake of having an "open" tag somewhere either missing the closing slash or missing the left or the right angle bracket </ >. When you learn later about how to code cascading stylesheets just a missing --> before the end of the </STYLE> will sometimes cause the entire Web page not to view. Keep in mind that the browser is very unforgiving about any coding "typos" or "omissions". If your Web page suddenly does not view properly then look for an error in one of the coded markup "tags" before checking elsewhere.A Word About Font FaceThe FONT element ("tags" and contents between the "tags") has a FACE attribute which allows you to select a font face whereever you would like to do so within the document, even if it is inside a table cell. The major browsers will render your selected font face onto your Web page only if that particular font face is a font already installed on your computer system. If the font face which is named is not available you may specify an alternate font face to use by putting a comma and a space between your first and second selections and you may also specify a general family of font such as script, serif, sans-serif. Here is an example of specifying a font face:
<FONT FACE="Tahoma, sans-serif">This is Tahoma font face, or sans-serif if Tahoma is not available.</FONT>
<FONT FACE="Times New Roman, serif">Times New Roman font face, or serif </FONT>
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, script" SIZE="5">Comic Sans MS font face, or a default script font face </FONT>
The font faces do not really become that noticeable on a Web page until the size is appreciably increased as for a title or subtitle. I will illustrate with the H4 title size:Times New RomanComic Sans MS, or default scriptScriptTahoma or default sans-serifArialCursiveSpecial Note:
When your Web page is published, or uploaded to the Web server, any font face that you specified will show as intended only if that is a font also available on the user's (surfer on the Internet) computer. If their computer does not have a font installed that you specified, it will go to your second choice font, or a "default" font, if you specified a general font group such as sans-serif. If you did not specify more than one choice and the user does not have that font, your page element font face will default to the default font face of the user's computer. It is beneficial to you as the Web author to select a first choice of font face, a second choice, and a general group.Now that you have completed this over-view of the FONT element you can practice combining various combinations of size, color and face. HTML books will have additional information about formatting text and fonts. If you should happen to begin using a stylesheet whether it is an external stylesheet or an internal one do not also use FONT elements. Once you graduate to stylesheets you will need to delete the <FONT></FONT> sprinkled throughout your HTML document.Note: When consulting a straight HTML reference book, look for the term FONT or FONT FACE in the index. Later when you study formatting with the CSS rules (Cascading Style Sheets) the terminology changes to font-family. Additional information is available in the Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). |