Learning HTML

There are several good text books on HTML -- see books listing

Recommended Books List

There are several ONLINE resources that are worth checking out.

HTML Writer's Guild Use URLs
http://www.hwg.org/resources/useful.html
HTML Writer's Guild Use URLs
http://www.hwg.org/resources/html/references.html
Suzanne Cook's Quick Tutorial on Creating Web Pages
(A brief, easy beginner's guide.)
http://cs.weber.edu/tutorial/

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Site of the organization which determines the standards of HTML. Some of the information gets technical but it is an invaluable resource in the long run.

Beginner's Guide to HTML

Up to date guide on HTML. Can Download site in various formats.

A Beginner's Guide to HTML Home pages

Very basic introduction and tutorial. A very detailed and step by step site. Also includes section on publishing a document to the Web.

How do they do that with HTML?

More of a tip's and tricks site, offers a good explanation of graphics and HTML

HTML for the Conceptually Challenged

HTML tutorial that uses "laymen's" terms to describe HTML tags and concepts

HTML Hints and Tips

Very Good guide to layout and structure of an HTML document. Includes sections on URL's and other terms.

HTML Questions and Answers

Basically a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Provides answers for specific problems.

Index DOT HTML: the Advanced HTML reference

One of best HTML sites around. Offers history, broswerisms, and full information on the latest tags. Includes coverage of things like Dynamic HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

HTML Quick Reference (Including Explorer and Netscape Extensions)

More of a reference guide than an introduction it contains a list of tags and their definitions. Covers HTML 3.2 as well as Explorer and Netscape proprietary tags

Netscape's HTML Reference Guide

HTML Reference Guide by Netscape. Offers comprehensive information and a full index of pages. Large site is not convenient to download manually though.

WDVL: Hypertext Markup Language

One of best out there. Covers all HTML including the newest additions such as dynamic HTML. Also has a large links section.

Standard 3.2 (Wilbur)
HTML 3.2 reference, by Arnoud "Galactus" Engelfriet and company. Very nice, quite complete, and very readable 3.2 reference. Also available as a single 260k downloadable file.
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/

Quick Reference for Standard 3.2 (Wilbur)
Kevin Werbach's Barebones Guide to HTML with 3.2 tags
(Also available as a downloadable text file)
http://werbach.com/barebones/

The Official W3C page on Standard 3.2 (Wilbur)
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/

Standards 2.0, 3.0 and many extensions
The always helpful Sandia Reference Manual
http://www.sandia.gov/sci_compute/elements.html

The Web Developer's Virtual Library at www.stars.com
(includes browser, server, and CGI references, too)
http://www.stars.com/Vlib/

The Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Jacob Nielsen's Alert Box, May 1996)
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

The O'Reilly dictionary: very helpful and quite complete dictionary of Internet/Web terms.
http://www.ora.com/reference/dictionary/

And one that's specific to the Web:
World Wide Web Acronym and Abbreviation List:
http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms/acro.html

HTML Goodies from Joe Burns. The HUH? Tutorials.
Forms, CGI, and a whole lot more
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

The Best Way to Learn HTML

The best way to learn HTML is by example.

You can read many books but practice, writing your own HTML pages and learning from example WWW pages on line is the best way to learn tips and constructs.

You can use Explorer/Netscape to help in this matter:

• Find a Web page you like or wish to learn how it is formatted.
• Make sure this Web page is currently being viewed by Netscape.
• You can view the WWW page by selecting the Page Source item from the View Menu.

  
  Figure: View HTML Source of a Web Page

• Compare the HTML with the browser display of the Page.
• Portions of the file may be selected with the mouse (click and drag mouse) and then Copied and Pasted into other documents.

Entire Web pages may also be saved to disk by

• Selecting the Save As... option from the File Menu.
• Choosing Source Format option and clicking on Save button.

  
  Figure: Saving HTML Source of a Web Page

• The Text Format Option provides a useful way of downloading HTML files and saving them as text for use in other documents (Although you can Copy and Paste directly from the Browser window for portions of Text).
• Explorer lets you archive files this way also.