Although all modern word processors and many specialized
tools can be used to make web pages without learning
HTML at all, learning HTML itself is a useful way
to learn more about the web and provides more control
over the results. Luckily, HTML is very simple and
quite easy to learn.
HTML was intended to be an instance of SGML, a
general-purpose markup language, but many HTML pages
do not comply with the requirements of SGML. XHTML,
which supersedes HTML, is a newer standard which
complies fully with the requirements of XML. XML
itself is a further refinement of SGML.
Here is a simple example of an HTML document. To
try this out for yourself, simply create a new file
called mypage.html with any text editor, such as
Windows notepad. Paste in the HTML below, make any
changes that please you, and save the document.
Then pick "open" from the File menu of
your web browser, locate the file you have just
made, and open it. If you make further changes,
you will need to "save" again and then
click "reload" or "refresh"
in your browser to see the results.
Of course, this is just a simple example. HTML
can do far, far more than this. A complete tutorial
can be found at Dave's
HTML Guide.
<title>Title of My Page Goes Here</title>
<h1>Heading Of My Page Goes Here</h1>
<a href="http://news.google.com/">Follow
this link to Google News</a>
<p>
Here is a picture of my cat:
</p>
<p>
<img src="cat.jpg" />
</p>
