NWE Help: Web: Authoring: Tutorial: Basics

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Before you can start writing your web page, you need to learn three concepts: tags, blank space, and source code.

Tags

HTML tags are commands enclosed in < > symbols called angle brackets. Most tags have an open tag and a close tag, the latter designated with a / (slash). Anything between the open tag and the close tag is affected by those tags.

Consider the strong tag <STRONG> as an example:

<STRONG>Ally Gator</STRONG>

Ally Gator could use the above statement to display her name in bold. The tag above in HTML yields this: Ally Gator

Blank space

Blank space is best explained by example. Consider the <STRONG> tag Ally Gator used above. Instead of using the tag as shown above, she could have used this:

<STRONG> Ally Gator </STRONG>

or

<STRONG>      Ally Gator        </STRONG>

or

<STRONG> Ally         Gator </STRONG>

to display Ally Gator because blank space makes no difference in an HTML document.

Source code

Web browsers give the option of viewing the HTML code for most any web page. One way to discover how the HTML works is to compare web pages to their source code. This method can also be a great way to learn techniques you may want to use. To see the source code of a page:

Choose the View menu

and select Page Source

A window with the source code from the page will open. If you scan the source code you've opened, you should recognize tags and, perhaps, be able to decipher what they do.

Next: Adding Content