Creating a Web Page With a Text Editor

You can create Web pages with a standard text editor, such as Notepad, by typing in HTML tags, which are formatting instructions that tell a user's Web browser how to display your document. HTML tags consist of a pair of text words enclosed within less than and greater than signs (< >). For example, the following HTML code displays the word Hello in bold type in the user's Web browser: <b>Hello</b>.

To create Web pages with a text editor
  1. In standard text (ASCII) editor create a basic skeleton, or template, to provide your browser with important HTML header and formatting information. Type in the following tags:
  2. <HTML>
    <HEAD>
    <TITLE>  </TITLE>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
    
    </BODY>
    </HTML>
  3. Place the title of your Web page between the <TITLE> tags. This title appears in your Web browser's title bar and not on your page. When you choose a title, use one that is brief and descriptive of your Web page's content.
  4. Put the text and other content that you want to appear in your Web browser between the <BODY> tags.
  5. Save your HTML file using an .htm extension (make sure that the text editor does not automatically add a .txt extension to your document), then open the file in a Web browser to view your changes.
  6. Add additional elements or formatting to your Web page; see the following table of HTML tags for some ideas. Repeat step 4 to view your changes.

Tip   You should probably review the HTML specifications (available on the Internet) to fully plan your HTML pages. In addition, with your Web browser's source viewing feature, you can also view the HTML source file for almost any Web page. You can use this feature to learn how other HTML authors have designed their Web pages.

 

HTML Tag Description
<p> </p> Starts, ends a paragraph.
<hn> </hn> Starts, ends heading text. The value n specifies different font sizes and should be an integer from 1 to 6.
<u> </u> Starts, ends underlined text.
<ul> </ul> Starts, ends a bulleted list of items. Each list item must begin with a <li> tag.
<ol> </ol> Starts, ends a numbered list of items. Each list item must begin with a <li> tag.
<li> Denotes a list item. An end tag is not required.
< b > < /b > Starts, ends boldface type.
< bgsound > Plays a background sound after the page loads.  Note   This feature is supported only by Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0 or later.
<font > < /font > Starts, ends text font characteristics, for example size, color, or typeface.
<a href=file > </a> Creates a hyperlink to a location in a file or to another document. For example, the following creates a link that users can click to view another HTML document: <a href="mainpage.html"> Go back to main page. </a>
<html> </html> Indicates that the contents of the file are in the HTML language. Typically, these are the first and last tags in every HTML document.
<head> </head> Contains HTML document heading information, such as the document title and other descriptive information. Web browsers and Web page search programs can use this information. However, you should not put the text of your document within this tag.
<title> </title> Denotes the title of the HTML document. The title appears in the Web browser's title bar, but not with your main text.
<body> </body> Contains content that you want to appear on your Web page.

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