tutorial | 01

Basic HTML

What is HTML?

HTML is one of the programming languages used to "write" websites. Every website is made up of a set of different codes that tell the browser how to display the information. HTML uses tags to define how information is displayed.

Opening Notepad

The first thing we need when coding HTML is a simple text editor like notepad. Open this by pointing to Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad (for Windows users).

Creating your first code

Once you have opened Notepad you can start typing HTML tags directly into the text part of Notepad. Every website start with the <html> tag and all (or rather most) tags need an end tag which looks like this </html>. The end tag has a backslash in front of the value.

The second tag that you will come across is the <head> tag. The <head> tag tells the browser what to put in the header part of the window. Inside the head tag you'll find the <title> tag. The <title> tag is the actual text to display in the header. After the <title> tag you get the end title </title> tag and then the end head </head> tag. Now before you can end your <html> tag, you need a <body> tag. The <body> tag contain all the elements that will be displayed on your website, e.g.. pictures, text.

Lets put all of these tags together.

<html>
<html>
<title> This is the text your browser displays </title>
</head>

<body>

</body>
</html>

In order for your page to display something you need some code in the <body> part of your document. Let's start with some simple text. To add simple text to your site, simply use the paragraph  and  tags. These tell your browser that it's a new paragraph. We also want to make this text bold and underlined . Make sure you close the tags in the order that they are opened.

Add the following code to the <body> section of your document.

<body>

  This is simple text to indicate a new paragraph that is underlined and bold..  

</body>

Saving and viewing your page.

Now that you have a very basic page you can save it and view it in your browser. To save your page as a HTML file you'll have to go to File > Save as...

Type "index.html" in the File Name field, and choose *All Files from the Save as type field. Create a new folder named "HTML Tutorial" under "My Documents" and save your file in that folder.

Go to to My Documents > HTML Tutorial and double click the file named index.html. It should automatically open in your default browser.

Congratulations!!! you have just created your first web page!