Creating HTML 3.2 Documents

HTML 3.2 documents are in plain text format and can be created using any text editor (e.g., Notepad on Windows or TeachText on Macintosh computers).  There are HTML editors that help you to create HTML documents by making HTML Tag selection easier for the beginner. I recommend DominHTML (http://www.dominocs.com/DHTML/) for Windows and BBEdit (http://www.barebones.com) if you're using a Macintosh.  WebWriter/2 (http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/OS2/64/121.html) is available for us OS/2 folks..

There are also complete HTML processors (like Word Processors) that allow you to create Web pages in a WYSIWYG environment, although most of them shield you from the code and will be of limited use in Learning HTML 3.2.  You may want to try AOLPRESS (http://www.aolpress.com) if you're in a Windows 3.x or greater environment as it has a built-in text editor in addition to it's WYSIWYG environment.

So how can you get what you've written in a text editor to be viewed in a browser?  Just save the file as index.htm or any other name with a ".htm" or ".html" extension at the end.  Then view it in your browser using the instructions below.

If you use a text editor, you can preview documents in progress with your browser.  Open the document using the Open Local (or Open-Local File) option under the File menu.  Use the dialog box fields to locate the document or enter the path and name of the document in the File Name field and press OK.

If you see edits you want to make, enter them in the source file on the text editor.  Then Save the changes, return to your browser and click Reload (or Refresh) on the button bar.  The edits are reflected in the on-screen display.

Now that we've tackled the basics of editing files it's on to the next chapter of Learning HTML 3.2.  By the way, I've included a small glossary of acronyms and terms you'll need to be familiar with as you go though this guide.