Greg
Gore is Vice President of Praxis International, Inc. Technical Training, Consulting, and Publishing since 1988
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Creating
an HTLM File to Prepare Web Page for Text Files |
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Many web pages are
essentially uploaded text files of articles, news stories, and other
information. One way to prepare such a web page is to create an HTML
(Hypertext Markup Language) file using a text editor such as Microsoft
Notepad or WordPad in Windows or SimpleText on Mac computers. Basic HTML is a simple coding structure and with just a few basic instructions, you can prepare an attractive web page. HTML code is really just a series of “tags” or instructions enclosed by left and right arrows, < >. Generally, tags have a beginning action code, for example, <body> and an ending code </body>. Note that the ending code is preceded by the forward slash, “/”. The minimal codes you will need to prepare HTML code for a text article are: <html> and </html> for the beginning and the end of the file; <body> and </body>; <title> and </title>; <h1> and </h1> for a heading (headings range in size from h1 to h6); and, <p> and </p> for paragraphs. As an aid to help you get
started quickly, copy the following code in your text editor and save it
as an html file. (In Notepad, for example, save the file as “intro.html”
and be sure to use “All Files (*.*)” for the “Save as Type”
response.): <html> Now that you have
prepared and saved the file, use your web browser to view and print the
web page. If you are using Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, you
can also view the HTML code for this page or any other web page by
selecting “View” and then “Page Source.” Of course, you can view
and print the HTML code for a web page by opening the file in Notepad,
WordPad, or SimpleText. The code for the sample
exercise above is an abbreviated form of an excellent one-page
introduction to HTML that is available on the Internet at http://ccil.org/~cp/html-intro.html.
The page is authored by Chuck Peters, a CCIL (Chester County Interlink)
volunteer. Chuck has been systems administrator of CCIL for over five
years. In addition, he was the technical consultant for the recently
published “Everyday Linux” (everydaylinux.com) and is currently
co-authoring a book on open source software. He can be reached at cp@ccil.org
or cp@linuxtech.com. Chuck has performed a
masterful job of providing a wealth of information on his intro page. If
you look at the code for Chuck’s page, you will learn how to link to
other web pages, how to prepare a bulleted list, and how to add emphasis
to web pages. Chuck’s page also lists very useful links to several
other guides and tutorials on HTML. A second way to prepare a
web page is to use Microsoft Word, Netscape Composer, or another program
that automatically converts a document to HTML. A drawback to this
method is that the HTML code created in the conversion process is overly
complicated for simple text documents. If you use this method of
creating web pages, you might want to check out two utility programs
that clean up and simply HTML files. Chuck Peters has a link to the “HTML
Tidy” program on his page. Microsoft Office 2000 users can download
the “Office 2000 HTML Filter 2.0” program at http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Msohtmf2.aspx.
An advantage of learning
to write HTML code yourself is that you will able to adapt ideas for
your web page design by viewing the HTML source code of web pages that
are appealing to you. Whenever you are “surfing the net” and find an
interesting page, view and copy the source code. You will quickly learn
how to add interesting colors, backgrounds and other features to your
own page. __________ The Greg Gore Web Site on Computers and the Internet (www.GregGore.com) This
column was published in the Daily Local News, West Chester, PA on June
20, 2001. Greg Gore can be reached at gg@GregGore.com. ©
2009 by Greg Gore. All rights reserved. |