P2P | IT Discussions Forum - HTML Tutorials

In this HTML tutorial you will learn how to use HTML to create your own Web site.
HTML is very easy to learn!
You will enjoy it!

What is an HTML File?[list]
[*]HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
[*]An HTML file is a text file containing small markup tags
[*]The markup tags tell the Web browser how to display the page
[*]An HTML file must have an htm or html file extension
[*]An HTML file can be created using a simple text editor[/list:u]Do You Want to Try It?[list]
[*]If you are running Windows, start Notepad.
[*]If you are on a Mac, start SimpleText.[/list:u]In OSX start TextEdit and change the following preferences: Open the the "Format" menu and select "Plain text" instead of "Rich text". Then open the "Preferences" window under the "Text Edit" menu and select "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files". Your HTML code will probably not work if you do not change the preferences above!

Type in the following text:

Quote: Title of page
This is my first homepage. This text is bold

Save the file as "mypage.htm".
Start your Internet browser. Select "Open" (or "Open Page") in the File menu of your browser. A dialog box will appear. Select "Browse" (or "Choose File") and locate the HTML file you just created - "mypage.htm" - select it and click "Open". Now you should see an address in the dialog box, for example "C:MyDocumentsmypage.htm". Click OK, and the browser will display the page.

Example Explained
The first tag in your HTML document is . This tag tells your browser that this is the start of an HTML document. The last tag in your document is . This tag tells your browser that this is the end of the HTML document.
The text between the tag and the tag is header information. Header information is not displayed in the browser window.
The text between the
The text between the tags is the text that will be displayed in your browser.
The text between the and tags will be displayed in a bold font.

HTM or HTML Extension?
When you save an HTML file, you can use either the .htm or the .html extension. We have used .htm in our examples. It might be a bad habit inherited from the past when some of the commonly used software only allowed three letter extensions. With newer software we think it will be perfectly safe to use .html.

Note on HTML Editors:
You can easily edit HTML files using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, instead of writing your markup tags in a plain text file. However, if you want to be a skillful Web developer, we strongly recommend that you use a plain text editor to learn your primer HTML.

Frequently Asked Questions
Q: After I have edited an HTML file, I cannot view the result in my browser. Why?
A: Make sure that you have saved the file with a proper name and extension like "c:mypage.htm". Also make sure that you use the same name when you open the file in your browser.

Q: I have edited an HTML file, but the changes don't show in the browser. Why?
A: A browser caches pages so it doesn't have to read the same page twice. When you have modified a page, the browser doesn't know that. Use the browser's refresh/reload button to force the browser to reload the page.

Q: What browser should I use?
A: You can do all the training with all of the well-known browsers, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, or Opera. However, some of the examples in our advanced classes require the latest versions of the browsers.

Q: Does my computer have to run Windows? What about a Mac?
A: You can do all your training on a non-Windows computer like a Mac.

HTML Elements
HTML documents are text files made up of HTML elements.
HTML elements are defined using HTML tags.

HTML Tags[list]
[*]HTML tags are used to mark-up HTML elements
[*]HTML tags are surrounded by the two characters < and >
[*]The surrounding characters are called angle brackets
[*]HTML tags normally come in pairs like and
[*]The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
[*]The text between the start and end tags is the element content
[*]HTML tags are not case sensitive, means the same as [/list:u][B]HTML Elements
Remember the HTML example from the previous page:

Title of page
This is my first homepage. This text is bold[/b]

This is an HTML element:
This text is bold

The HTML element starts with a start tag:
The [B]content of the HTML element is: This text is bold
The HTML element ends with an end tag: [/b]
The purpose of the tag is to define an HTML element that should be displayed as bold.

This is also an HTML element:
This is my first homepage. This text is bold
This HTML element starts with the start tag , and ends with the end tag .
The purpose of the tag is to define the HTML element that contains the body of the HTML document.

Why do We Use Lowercase Tags?
We have just said that HTML tags are not case sensitive: means the same as . If you surf the Web, you will notice that plenty of web sites use uppercase HTML tags in their source code. We always use lowercase tags. Why?

If you want to follow the latest web standards, you should always use lowercase tags. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase tags in their HTML 4 recommendation, and XHTML (the next generation HTML) demands lowercase tags.

Tag Attributes
Tags can have attributes. Attributes provide additional information to an HTML element. The following tag defines an HTML table: . With an added border attribute, you can tell the browser that the table should have no borders:
Attributes always come in name/value pairs like this: name="value".
Attributes are always specified in the start tag of an HTML element.
Attributes and attribute values are also case-insensitive. However, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase attributes/attribute values in their HTML 4 recommendation, and XHTML demands lowercase attributes/attribute values.

Always Quote Attribute Values
Attribute values should always be enclosed in quotes. Double style quotes are the most common, but single style quotes are also allowed. In some rare situations, like when the attribute value itself contains quotes, it is necessary to use single quotes:
name='John "ShotGun" Nelson'

AjEe
02-28-2007, 08:04 AM

Basic HTML Tags
The most important tags in HTML are tags that define headings, paragraphs and line breaks. The best way to learn HTML is to work with examples. We have created a very nice HTML editor for you. With this editor, you can edit the HTML source code if you like, and click on a test button to view the result.

Headings
Headings are defined with the
to
tags.
defines the largest heading.
defines the smallest heading.

This is a heading

This is a heading

This is a heading

This is a heading

This is a heading

This is a heading

Quote:HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after a heading.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs are defined with the
tag.

This is a paragraph

This is another paragraph

Quote: HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after a paragraph.

Line Breaks
The
tag is used when you want to end a line, but don't want to start a new paragraph. The
tag forces a line break wherever you place it.

This
is a para
graph with line breaks
The
tag is an empty tag. It has no closing tag.

Comments in HTML
The comment tag is used to insert a comment in the HTML source code. A comment will be ignored by the browser. You can use comments to explain your code, which can help you when you edit the source code at a later date.
 Note that you need an exclamation point after the opening bracket, but not before the closing bracket.

Basic Notes - Useful Tips
When you write HTML text, you can never be sure how the text is displayed in another browser. Some people have large computer displays, some have small. The text will be reformatted every time the user resizes his window. Never try to format the text in your editor by adding empty lines and spaces to the text.

HTML will truncate the spaces in your text. Any number of spaces count as one. Some extra information: In HTML a new line counts as one space. Using empty paragraphs
to insert blank lines is a bad habit. Use the
tag instead. (But don't use the
tag to create lists. Wait until you have learned about HTML lists.) You might have noticed that paragraphs can be written without the closing tag
. Don't rely on it. The next version of HTML will not allow you to skip ANY closing tags. HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after some elements, like before and after a paragraph, and before and after a heading. We use a horizontal rule (the
tag), to separate the sections in our tutorials.
Basic HTML Tags

Tag Description
Defines an HTML document
Defines the document's body

to
Defines header 1 to header 6

Defines a paragraph

Inserts a single line break

Defines a horizontal rule
<!--> Defines a comment

HTML Text Formatting
HTML defines a lot of elements for formatting output, like bold or italic text.

How to View HTML Source
Have you ever seen a Web page and wondered "Hey! How did do they do that?" To find out, click the VIEW option in your browser's toolbar and select SOURCE or PAGE SOURCE. This will open a window that shows you the HTML code of the page.

Text Formatting Tags
Tag Description
Defines bold text
Defines big text
Defines emphasized text
Defines italic text
Defines small text
Defines strong text
_{Defines subscripted text

^{Defines superscripted text

Defines inserted text

Defines deleted text

Deprecated. Use instead

Deprecated. Use instead

Deprecated. Use styles instead

"Computer Output" Tags

Tag Description

Defines computer code text

Defines keyboard text

Defines sample computer code

Defines teletype text

Defines a variable

Defines preformatted text Deprecated. Use instead Deprecated. Use <pre> instead <xmp> Deprecated. Use <pre> instead <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
<br />
Citations, Quotations, and Definition Tags</span><br />
Tag Description <br />
<abbr> Defines an abbreviation <br />
<acronym> Defines an acronym <br />
<address> Defines an address element <br />
<bdo> Defines the text direction <br />
<blockquote> Defines a long quotation <br />
<q> Defines a short quotation <br />
<cite> Defines a citation <br />
<dfn> Defines a definition term</div>
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