HTML 101

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Introduction

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is used for creating Web pages and other information viewable in a Web browser.

Creating a basic Web page can be simple.

You start with a blank page and type in some coded commands - HTML - that a Web browser reads to determine how to display the page on a computer screen. These HTML commands are basically of two types - tags and attributes.

To create a Web page you can use a basic text editor, such as Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for the Mac. Both of these are bundled with their respective operating systems. Once your HTML prowess and needs become more advanced, you'll want to use a power editor, such as TextMate for the Mac.  Don't use Microsoft Word or any other word processing program for editing HTML - word processors generate documents in binary format, not plain text. Even word processors capable of generating HTML will probably do so very badly (MS Word is a prime example of this). 

You can also use a Web site creation and management application such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive or Microsoft FrontPage. These programs automate the steps needed to add HTML to a page, and also provide a visual display of what a Web page looks like as you create it.

Most journalists now probably use a Web site creation program like Dreamweaver to build their Web pages. Or they work with a sophisticated Content Management System their news organisaiton uses to manage its Web site. These programs allow you to create Web pages without typing in the actual HTML (they also take advantage of more advanced HTML, such as cascading style sheets, to set things like font sizes for text and other attributes of a page).

But it's still useful to know at least the basics of HTML so you can understand what's going on behind the scenes when you're putting a Web page together.

This tutorial provides a basic understanding of HTML, such as it was used in the early 1990s when Web pages were first created on the Internet.

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