Fundamentals of HTML

The increasing use of the Internet and the advent ofdocuments are simple ASCII text files. This means that
the World Wide Web have created a growing needa simple text editor such as "Simpletext" for Macintosh
for individuals who are familiar with the Web designor "Notepad" for Windows could be used to create
principles coupled with Web page scripting skills. TheHTML documents. There are many basic HTML
World Wide Web has greatly impacted our society. Iteditors of which HTML editor for Windows and HTML
has become a new form of communication, a neweditor for Macintosh are recommended. WYSIWYG
way to purchase products and services, a new way(what you see is what you get) HTML editors are
to entertain, provide news, and learn valuable andanother type of editor. They are like word processors
sometimes valueless, information. As the web hasor page layout software for web documents. Their
matured from a "get rich quick" technology into agoal is to provide authors of web documents with a
valuable new communications tool, it has fostered newmethod of building pages without having to learn HTML.
career opportunities and challenges. The HypertextExamples are Dreamweaver, GoLive, and FrontPage.
Markup Language (HTML) is the language used toA question may arise as to why a person should learn
describe the contents of a Web page. It defines theHTML. This is because professionals need to
syntax and placement of special instructions calledunderstand the code behind the document so that
"tags" which describe the desired structure of thethey can learn the limitations as well as the possibilities
content to the browser. An HTML document containsof HTML. However, all WYSIWYG editors do not
text (content) and embedded tags, which provide thecreate a clean code. The most common extension for
instructions to the browser on how to structure thefiles containing HTML is .html, however, older operating
document. One of the powerful features of HTML issystems, such as DOS, limit file extensions to three
the "hypertext link" that allows the HTML author toletters. So .htm extension is still in use. Although
define pages to jump to (linking). This ability to jump toperhaps less common now, the shorter form is still
another page or to an entirely different Web site iswidely supported by current software.
unique to the Web based document. HTML