So, you want to make a Web Page!
Lesson 1
Just like 'follow the bouncing ball', power up Notepad and start with this...

<HTML>
</HTML>

Each one of those is called a tag. There is a starting tag and a closing tag. To make a closing tag just add a / to the starting tag. Most, but not all tags have a closing tag.
Think of tags as talking to the browser, or better yet giving it instructions. What you have just told the browser is 'this is the start of a HTML document' (<HTML>) and 'this is the end of a HTML document' (</HTML>). Now we need to put some stuff into it.

Every HTML document needs a pair of HEAD tags.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
</HTML>

The only thing we have to concern ourselves with in the HEAD tags (for now) are the TITLE tags.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE>
</HEAD>
</HTML>

And the bulk of the page is going to be within the BODY tags.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Oh, and one more thing, give your document a title.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My big ole bad page!</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Now save it, not as a text document, but as a html document. Save it as page1.html in a new folder somewhere (Win3.x users save it as page1.htm). If yer a little fuzzy about how to do this then here's what you do (Win95)... In your Notepad window click File then Save as.
You will be presented with a dialog box. Make a new folder by clicking this ->
Name it whatever you want. Then double click on it to open it up. Where it says File name: type in page1.html Where it says Save as type: make sure it says All Files(*.*)
Hit return and you're done!

Congratulations! You are the proud parent of a fully functional Web Page! You could upload it to a server and the whole world can see your creation! If you are using Netscape, the file you made should look something like this...


(if your Netscape icon is a little different, it's no biggie)

You can double click on it now and see the results of your handiwork.

Unfortunately, as you can see, the page is just a little bit blank (but it is still a legitemate HTML document!). Next order of business is to start putting some neato stuff in your page.

But before we go on I want to make two quick points. One, what you made is a skeleton HTML document. This is the minimum required information for a web document and all web documents should contain these basic components. And two, the document title is what appears at the very top of the browser window.

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Introduction Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Index
PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGN