When a browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer, accesses a web page on a web server, the server sends an HTML file to the browser. The browser interprets the HTML code and displays the web page in accordance with the instructions specified by the HTML.
HTML stands for "HyperText Markup Language" and is the basic "language" used by web masters, web designers and web site creators to create human readable websites. Technically, it is not a programming language but a markup language.
Although many other technologies are used to generate the rich and interactive experience of the World Wide Web (for example PHP, Javascript, AJAX, CSS, and others) HTML remains a core technology for providing web functionality.
Although there are many good books one can use to learn how to create web pages, it is easy to get a solid background in HTML using free resources available on the web.
The World Wide Web Consortium
One of the best online HTML tutorials is offered by the World Wide Web Consortium. The consortium's W3 Schools are an excellent place to get professionally-designed training on many web technologies for free.
The W3 Schools HTML Tutorials are a standard starting point for many people who want to test the waters of web design using HTML. These tutorials offer live practice coding regions on screen where the learner can experiment with the HTML to see exactly what the effect will be when viewed with a browser. The HTML tutorials are divided into two sections--basic and advanced.
A raft of other tutorials await to take one's web design skills to the next level; XHTML, HTML5, XML, TCP/IP, scripting, Flash, multimedia – they are all there.
HTML Source
Another good tutorial site is HTML Source. This is a site run by a private individual but it is well planned and has everything needed for a complete HTML novice to get started creating web pages. The Start Here page is a great entry point It offers an outstanding overview of the most important facets of web development and give the novice web coder an excellent background in the what, where, when and why of web development. From there it's a short hop to My First Site and things get going quickly and easily from there.
HTML Reference Sites
Once the basics of page layout, text formatting, alignments, tables, divs, and spans have been learned there is still much more to master before one can claim to be a web coding expert. There is no better resource than Google (or another search engine) for learning specific HTML techniques, grabbing example code snippets, and even finding master lists of HTML tags for any and all web purposes.
Memory will fail until sufficient experience is gained. The above mentioned tutorial sites will still be useful upon return visits when a quick refresher is needed. However, it's hard to find a tutorial that covers every conceivable situation and every possible way of solving a web design problem. It is a good idea to find some websites to use as references, and bookmark them for future use.
Some good ones to start with are:
- 1536 HTML Color Pallet (zoomable) – This is a nice chart of hexadecimal color codes for specifying a wide range of colors on a web page.
- HTML Codes - Characters and Symbols – A complete list of HTML codes for specifying special characters (like the degree symbol, copyright symbol, etc.)
- HTML Quick List – This page gives a table of the most commonly used HTML tags and their attributes.
It certainly is good to have a book on hand as a reference, especially for those times and places when internet access is not available. But, a dedicated learner can go from beginner to near expert by taking advantage of the many free resources available for learning HTML on the World Wide Web.
Philip McIntosh - The author holds a B.Sc. in Botany and Chemistry and an M.A in Biology and he has thirty + years of experience in science and industry.
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