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What is HTML?
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HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It was first proposed in 1947, before the invention of the internet. It is a way to organize and format text and images so they are easily readable. It has the additional feature of linking one idea to another. It may seem complicated at first, but it's easy to get the hang of.
HTML is made up of pairs of "tags". These "tags" tell the browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) what to do with the text inbetween. Tags are made up of keywords inbetween greater than and less than signs. An example is <font color="red">Hi!</font>. For most tags, you need to put the close font tag (adding a forward slash before the keyword) between the less than sign and the keyword, or else the tag will not be complete.
In HTML, flow is very important. If you wanted text to be indented, like for a paragraph, you can't just put spaces in front of the text in the HTML document. You'd have to use the symbols for a space ( ), one after the other, before your text. Another helpful thing to do is space out your tags so that you can read them easily. Instead of putting <font> and </font> on either end of the text, you can press enter and indent the text. For example:
<font color="red">
Hi!
</font>
Instead of:
<font color="red">Hi!</font>
It doesn't matter how you space out the tags in your HTML document, because the browser only picks up the tags, not the spaces. To get started, click on the link "Hello World".
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What Tools Do I Need?
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To edit HTML, you can use any basic text editor, like notepad. I like to use HTML Editor, because it colors the code to make it easier to read. I like using it more than something like Frontpage or Dreamweaver because you can be more precise in where you want things and you don't need to know what buttons to push. It's also free! You can download the most recent version of HTML Editor here.
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