WordPress® Web Design For Dummies®

Choosing the Right Text Editor for You

In Part III of this book, you dig in to WordPress themes, work with CSS and HTML, and type template tags and a bit of PHP. This chapter arms you with the tools you need to gather to prepare for a smooth and efficient experience.

Next to reliable ol’ pen and paper, nothing beats a good, solid text editor. I admit, I’m a little old school, so for things like grocery lists and jotting down ideas, I stick with a pad of paper and a pen. Unfortunately, writing code is difficult with a pen and paper, and it doesn’t translate very well when I need to publish it to the Internet. That’s when a basic text-editor program comes in very handy. I always have one open on my computer (usually several instances of my favored text editor, actually) and use it every day for writing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HTML as well as coding WordPress templates and themes.

Make sure that you use a text editor and not a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, to write any code because a word processing program automatically inserts formatting, characters, and hidden spaces. When you’re writing code, the last thing you want is anything but your own code inserted into the document — so stick with a basic text editor.

The text editors I describe in this section are programs that you install on your computer. Some of them are available only for Windows, and some only for ...