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Writing content for the Web |
What is HTML?
 yper Text Markup Language, or HTML, is a language used to create and link
pages on the World Wide Web. The word "markup" refers to the addition of
special symbols to plain text files that add formatting and linking
features for the Web. HTML was originally designed as an extension to
Standard Generalizable Markup Language (SGML), which was standardized in
1980. HTML added hypertext, the critical feature which allows users to
link to (or download) files from anywhere on the network by simply
clicking on a word or picture. Software titles required to view HTML are
called browsers, the most common of which are Netscape Navigator and
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
HTML code is stored on a computer called a server. When a browser program such as Netscape or Internet Explorer requests a page of HTML, the server sends it over the Internet. It could go through many types of computers on its way from the server to the browser. Because of this, HTML must be very simple. It needs to be made up of plain text only, with no fancy codes. |
 hat does that
mean? "Plain text?" Most word processors use special codes
that only they understand in order to designate formatting. When you mark
certain text as "Times Roman, 12 point, bold", the word processor inserts
a code. Just about every word processor uses its own codes--which is
why files created in WordPerfect have to be converted if you want to open
them in Microsoft Word. Even different versions of the same program use
different codes.
If everyone on the World Wide Web used Microsoft Word version 5.1, there would be no need for HTML. But since everyone uses different word processors, some standard way of entering those formatting codes was needed. That's what HTML does. |
What do I need to create HTML?
 ny word
processor will work, since they all have the ability to save
documents as "plain text" without any of the special codes. If you are
using a standard word processor program you will need to remember to save
your document this way rather than in the normal word processor format. In
the "save as..." dialog box there will usually be an option for "file
type." Select "Plain text," "Text only," "ASCII text," or "DOS text" (the
actual term varies depending on the program). Of course, doing this means
that the only information saved is the text of the document. You will
lose all of the special formatting like fonts, bold, italics, indenting,
et cetera.
Full-featured word processors will often have features that interfere with HTML codes. The most common of these is the "curly quotes" that most new word processors automatically substitute for the "straight quotes" seen on the keyboard. Curly quotes do not translate across computers; technically, this is because they are not part of the 128-character ASCII set, and thus will mess up your page. Remember to turn this feature and others like it off. A better choice for ease of use would be a word processor that only supports plain text, for example: "SimpleText" or "BBEdit Lite" on the Macintosh, and "Notepad" on Windows computers. These programs don't even allow users to format text -- they save as plain text. |
So how do I do it?
 ut wait a
minute! If plain text doesn't allow for text or paragraph
formatting like bolding and indents, how do all of the Web pages out
there include these features? They work because they are written in HTML,
which is a method for inserting codes into a plain text document. When
the browser reads the document, those codes in HTML are translated into
the formatting that is desired.
An HTML code is separated from the plain text by surrounding it with brackets like this < >. These brackets tell the browser that the codes inside are HTML and not ordinary text. For example, to make some text bold, you type the code <b> in front of the text and the code </b> at the end of the text. An actual sentence as seen in HTML might look like this: I want to make the last word <b> bold </b>. And would be displayed in a browser like this: I want to make the last word bold. The interesting thing is that the HTML is just plain text. If you open a Web page in a word processor, you will see the codes. But when viewed with a browser, the codes will be hidden and the text will be formatted. To learn more about how to write HTML, check out this Introduction to HTML. This online document was created by Eric A. Meyer, an Information Technologies System Specialist at Case Western Reserve University. |
Isn't there an easier way?
 f course there is.
Many programs exist now that allow you to create Web
pages in a program just like you write in a word processor. They include
buttons and menus that automatically add the HTML tags to a document. You
see the pages on your screen the same way that a user would see them in a
browser, and when you save the pages they are automatically saved in HTML.
Some of the more popular HTML editors are:
Microsoft FrontPageClaris Home Page Adobe PageMill Netscape Composer Editors are far from perfect, and often the completed Web pages don't look exactly the way they did on your screen. Nevertheless, they are far and away the simplest way to create Web pages from scratch. However, just as in math class you learn to do long division by hand before you are given a calculator, it is valuable to learn to write HTML before you begin to rely on editing programs. Knowing how to write HTML allows you to incorporate new HTML features that may not yet be available in current editors. If the text is already written, it is usually fairly quick and easy to open the document in a word processor and add HTML codes to a few places. Additionally, in many instances it is faster or otherwise more efficient to fix problems or make minor changes by hand rather than by opening an editor program. |
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