Creating Web Pages For Dummies®

Chapter 8. Introduction to HTML

In This Chapter

• Making it all work

• Understanding HTML

• Examining key HTML tags

• Creating a blank page with HTML

• Browsing your own little Web

Knowing the basics of HTML — HyperText Markup Language, in case you didn't know that — is a good thing. HTML is the code that connects the text content of your Web page with the graphics, links, and appearance users see in a Web browser. If you know the basics of HTML, you'll understand why Web pages look and work the way they do, and you'll understand how you can create and improve your own Web page.

In earlier chapters, we've shown you how to do all sorts of cool things on the Web without learning HTML. But if you know a bit of HTML, you can usually dress up even a ready‐made Web page on GeoCities (Chapter 2) or a blog on Blogger (Chapter 6). And as you become more familiar with HTML, your powers increase.

But trying to figure out a lot of HTML right away is a bad thing. Spending hours and hours going over all the details of HTML is likely to slow your quest to become a Web publisher. And becoming a Web publisher quickly can, again, be a good thing. So don't let a bad thing get in the way of good things; use this chapter to find out just enough about HTML to help you create some basic pages and get them on the Web.

Get Ready: A Refreshingly Brief Description of HTML

HTML is a specific way of adding descriptive tags to regular text so that all the formatting, linking, and navigational information you need in a Web page ...