HTML Frequently Asked Questions
- What is HTML?
- From the World Wide Web Consortium:
HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch- to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags such as <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc.
HTML is not a design language; it is structural, but, style sheets can be used as well to make your pages "look" the way you want it to. There is an extremely impressive example of the use of stylesheets at CSS Zen Garden.
- Do I need special software?
- No. There are many programs out there for writing web pages, ranging in price from free to hundreds of dollars. There are text-based editors, such as jEdit, FirstPage, WebDwarf and Bluefish, all of which are free. There are editors built in to other programs, like Mozilla or Netscape Communicator, which are also free. Then there are other graphic-oriented WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors which begin to cost money. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, adn individual tastes will count for most of the decision, but, you can write perfectly functional web pages in a program as simple as Notepad.
- Why does my web page look so different on my computer?
- Sounds like you fell into a WYSIWYG trap. What You See Is What You Get. Usually this results from injudicious use of odd fonts. It also could be that the editor you used has added extra code that affects how a web page looks on other browsers. So, you might try validating your HTML to make sure the code in your pages is universally accepted, or specific to a browser or platform.
- So, Validator didn't like my code. How can I clean it up?
- Validator gives many suggestions on this as it reads through your page.
There is also the Tidy Project, which is designed to help you clean up lots of common HTML errors.