- Posted by lio on October 5, 2008
What is an HTML File?
- 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
Do You Want to Try It?
If you are running Windows, start Notepad.
If you are on a Mac, start SimpleText.
In
OSX start TextEdit and change the following preferences: Open 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:
|
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
</html>
|
Save the file as "mypage.htm".
Start your Internet
browser. Select "Open" (or "OpenPage") in the File menu of your
browser. A dialog box will appear. Select"Browse" (or "Choose File")
and locate the HTML file youjust created - "mypage.htm" - select it and
click "Open".Now you should see an address in the dialog box, for
example "C:\MyDocuments\mypage.htm".Click OK, and the browser will
display the page.
Example Explained
The first tag in
your HTML document is <html>. This tag tells your browser
thatthis is the start of an HTML document. The last tag in your
document is</html>. This tag tells your browser that this is the
end of the HTML document.
The text between the <head> tag
and the</head> tag is header information. Header information
isnot displayed in the browser window.
The text between the <title> tagsis the title of your document. The title is displayed in your browser'scaption.
The text between the <body> tags is the text that will be displayed in your browser.
The text between the <b> and </b> 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 thepast 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 writingyourmarkup
tags in a plain text file.
However, if you want to be a skillful
Webdeveloper, we strongly recommend that you use a plain text editor to
learn yourprimer HTML.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: After I have edited an HTML file, I cannot view the result in mybrowser. Why?
A: Make
sure that you have saved the file with a propername 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 thebrowser. 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 advancedclasses 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.