A text input is simply a box in which anything can be typed -- letters, numbers, or anything else -- via the keyboard. In most browsers, the box is twenty characters wide, but this can vary.
Simply set the type attribute of the input tag to get a text input box:
<INPUT type="text">
which would result result in:
The SIZE attribute can be used to fix the width of the displayed box:
<INPUT type="text" size=9>
which would result result in:
You can limit the number of characters which may be input by using the MAXLENGTH attribute. The value of MAXLENGTH is expressed as a number of characters, just as SIZE is. For Example:
<INPUT type="text" name="socsec" size=9 maxlength=9>
which creates an input field nine characters wide into which no more than nine characters may be input.
or
<INPUT type="text" name="socsec" size=9 maxlength=11>
which creates an input field is still nine characters wide, but the user can enter up to eleven characters.