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A great way to learn HTML is by example. One of the wonderful things about the internet is that you can see the HTML code behind all of the pages on the web. Here's the trick:
  1. In your browser window, pull down your View Menu.
  2. Select Page Source.
  3. A new window will open with the HTML code for the document.
  4. Close the window which contains HTML code to return to the original web page.
  5. To save the HTML code for the page, go to the File Menu and choose Save As.
  6. Name the file and save it to your hard drive or removeable storage.
Now, follow these steps to build your own HTML document.
  1. Using the trick outlined above, save the HTML code of this template as "template.html" to your diskette.
  2. Go to the Start Menu in the lower left corner, choose the Programs Menu, choose the Accessories Menu, and open Notepad.
  3. Open "template.html" in Notepad.
  4. Inside the <TITLE> tag, write a title for your web page. This title will appear in the top bar of a browser window, and should not exceed 60 characters.
  5. Did you notice the background color of "template.html?" If no background color is specified, the default color is gray in some browsers. Change the background color in your HTML by modifying your opening <BODY> tag like this:
    <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
    This is a hexidecimal code, which is a shorthand for a numeric equation that the computer can translate into the to display of a color. In this case, the color is white.
  6. Put a title on your web page using the header tag:
    <H2>My Web Page</H2>
  7. Write a few lines of text. Italicize one of the words in your text. You can find the appropriate tag in the commonly used HTML tags chart.
  8. Add a paragraph break by using the <P> tag.
  9. Copy and paste the text below to add a link to the Alexander Graham Bell Papers collection in American Memory:
    <A HREF="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bellhtml/bellhome.html">
    Alexander Graham Bell Papers</A>
  10. Save and Close "template.html."
  11. Go to your browser and open "template.html." Tah-dah!

So, you've got a web page, and you're asking "Now what?" Let's go on to learn about directory and file structure.

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Last updated 09/26/2002