Creating Web Documents
HTML is the language behind a World Wide Web page. It is much less
complex that it sounds! It stands for HyperText Markup
Language; HTML is the type of documents a Web browser can
interpret to display its various documents. The documents
themselves are plain text files (ASCII) with special
"tags" or codes that a Web browser knows how to
interpret and display on your screen.
What is this document?
This page is not meant to be a complete guide to HTML.
However, we encourage you to take a look at our tutorial,
Writing HTML, designed to
help faculty create lessons that access the Internet via
the World Wide Web. See also the MCLI
HTML resource list.
Why Create HTML files?
- To create documents for your own WWW server- for
example using Webstar
software, you can set up a server on just about any
Macintosh computer. In fact, our server
once ran humbly on a Macintosh SE/30.
- Are you already running a Gopher server? You
can put HTML documents on a Gopher server;
just make sure the URL you publicize points to is a
Gopher type. For example, a
HTML document resides on our Gopher Server.
- Don't want to maintain a server? Just create HTML
documents and then use the Open File... command from
the File menu to read in the document you have
created- it will look and function just like any other
Web Page out there on the Internet. See below.
- Have your Web browser program default to connect to a
local HTML file on your computer- This way you will not
have to wait for it to connect a busy server, and you can customize
your initial entrance into
the World Wide Web... Make your very own Home Page!
What do I need?
HTML references and guide to tools
- Any plain text editor- TeachText for the Macintosh,
the Windows NotePad, i.e. any application that can save
files as plain text.
- A World Wide Web broswer such as NetScape, NCSA Mosaic, etc-
It is not needed to create
HTML files, but helps to test the appearance and
functionality of the documents as you create them (more
details down the page!)
Okay! How do I do it?
It may be easier to start with a sample document. You can
modify its various features before venturing out on your
Here are the basic steps:
- Launch your WWW browser application.
- In another window open an existing HTML document or
open a new window with your favorite plain text editor.
- Modify or create the new text in accordance to the
rules for HTML format. Refer to one of the references
listed above for more details.
- In the text editor, be sure to save the changes.
- Go back to the WWW browser application, and select
Open... from the File menu. Fish around
in the dialog boxes until you can find the document you
just saved in the previous step.
- Voila! You should now see the document in Mosaic
- If it's not perfect, go back to the text editor and
make appropriate changes (and remember to SAVE).
- Go back to the WWW browser application. To update
the changes, select Reload from:
- the File menu [for NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3, MacWeb]
- the Navigate menu [NCSA Mosaic 2.x]
- the View menu [NetScape]
- Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Experiment.
Once again, another plug for our tutorial, Writing HTML.
Creating Web Documents
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI)
Maricopa County Community College District
The Internet Connection at MCLI is
Alan Levine --}
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