Getting Started

To compose a Web page, you need to learn how to generate HTML files. Although HTML looks complicated when you first view a source page, it's a relatively simple computer language. You can compose Web pages in three ways:

1. With an editor- Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Adobe GoLive, for example
2. With a translator-Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which all have a "save as HTML" command
3. By hand-coding HTML with NotePad on Windows, SimpleText on Mac, or any word processing program

Editors and translators offer the great advantage that you don't have to learn any HTML commands, but it's still handy to know a little about HTML. Sometimes the editor doesn't produce exactly the results you want, and you can open the source file, identify the problem, and fix it.