Web Authoring: Creating and Editing HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language)

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Creating and Editing HTML

What is HTML?

In order to construct Web pages you need to be able to produce HTML. HTML is a simple mark-up language. An HTML document consists of ordinary text interspersed with commands embedded between angle brackets. These commands, known as tags, control the appearance and layout of the text displayed by your browser and enable pictures to be inserted into the documents. There are also usually pointers to other target documents on the Web. Such a pointer is known as a hyperlink (or just link).

You can use your browser to view the HTML text of this page. In Netscape you click the VIEW button and then click Page Source or Document Source. You will notice that the layout of the HTML source bears little resemblance to the layout of the page displayed by the browser. An important point to understand about HTML is that unless you specify precisely how the document is to be formatted for display, the browser will simply run all your text together, with words separated by a single space or newline, as required to fill the display. Additional spaces, TAB characters and newlines will all be ignored. It is possible to insert tags such that the browser treats the text as already formatted ("preformatted text") which is useful in some circumstances, but generally it is not a good idea, because the browser will then not adjust the text to fit the display.

How to write HTML

Generally, there are four alternative approaches to writing HTML pages:

• First you may write the text of your document using a word processor such as Microsoft Word 97, and then write out the document in HTML format (you may want to save it as a Word document first). Both the course staff and students in previous years have experienced serious problems with this method; consequently we are unable to recommend it. This method must not be used for assignment and project work.
• The second approach involves using the browser itself. Modern Web browsers such as Netscape Communicator have an HTML editor associated with them. For example, with Netscape Communicator click on "File" then "New" then "Blank Page" to start a new document, or click on "File" then "Edit Page" to edit a copy of the page you are currently viewing. The editor (Composer) has buttons which you click on to insert the appropriate tags: click on the Help link on the browser for detailed documentation.
• The third approach is to purchase one of several commercially available HTML editors. An important feature to consider is whether the editor is the WYSiWYG (what you see is what you get) type. Note that some browsers work in WYSiWYG mode for some HTML elements, but for other elements (particularly FONT FACE), you have to type in the tags yourself - consult the documentation for the editor you plan to use. All those shown on the list have either been used successfully by students in previous years, or by the teaching staff at Birkbeck. All of them allow you a period of free trial before you need to purchase a license, and it goes without saying that you should try before you buy to ensure that the software meets your requirements.
• Finally, because HTML simply consists of ASCII text, any standard text editor (not a word processor!) may be used to write and edit it. Ideally, your text editor should give some assistance for inserting HTML tags into the document. For example, under Unix or Linux you can use Emacs. Under MS-Windows, NotePad and WordPad are usable as very simple text editors, though they do not provide any help with insertion of tags (when saving new files with WordPad beware that the default format is MS-Word, so be sure to specify "Save as type: Text Document").

  This last method has been the method of choice for producing the hundreds of webpages required for this course. In general, it is a very successful method, especially for those familiar with HTML, though it can be slow for beginners.

How to learn about HTML

One of the best ways of starting to create Web pages is to find other people's pages that you like and then look at the HTML that they used to create them. However, beware of copying bad HTML or styles!

HTML comes in several flavours and the evolving standard is controlled by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The current standard is HTML 4.0 and this is now implemented in many browsers. When writing Web pages, bear in mind that some people may not have a browser that implements the latest version. In addition, the various browsers all have extensions, which are not by any means universal. So keep your Web pages simple.

In the following pages (follow the button bar), you will learn the details of a selection of HTML elements and how to use them correctly. You should read through all the sections that describe the various tags, even if you plan to use an HTML editor, because there are a number of important points pertaining to HTML writing style that are discussed there, and which are difficult to explain without referring to the tags. You can also look at the links on Web Authoring, and find out about every HTML style convention and the (lack of) standards.

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