Introduction to Web Page Creation

This page is designed to give a general overview of the steps necessary to produce web pages for Internet display. Click on links throughout the document to get more detail on any topic.

Table of Contents

Return to Table of Contents

Web Background

The obvious question to new users is "What is the Web anyway? Essentially it is a massive collection of computers linked together from all over the earth. There is a web site called Internet 101 which provides a great explanation of the origins of the Web. The philosophy of that site is stated up front:
	Internet 101 was created for those who want to know just the basics. 
	This guide will provide you with enough knowledge to have fun on the Internet, 
	yet will not bore you with too many details.
To view more information on this go to the
Internet 101 site.

Return to Table of Contents

HTML, Browsers, and Servers

Web sites are locations (computers) on the Internet that contain information in graphical, audio and text format. This information accessed from files that are formatted according to the HTML language. In this language, text is embedded with commands to format material and link to other documents such as pictures and sound files. The program that interprets these instructions is called a Browser program. Browsers interpret the commands in your HTML files, and format the information accordingly. You can run a Browser program on your local PC but to make your files available to the world you will need to transfer them to a Server, a computer that is specially set up to allow users to make their information available to others.

To view more information on this topic go to HTML, Browsers, and Servers

Return to Table of Contents

Notepad to Create HTML

There are many ways you can create HTML code. There are programs such as Microsoft FrontPage which is specially designed to create HTML code. You can even export information from a Microsoft Word file to an HTML format. At the high end of the scale, Macromedia's Dreamweaver is a sweet program that has an integrated design environment.

However, before you start using any of these programs it is really best to gain a basic understanding of the HTML language by creating your own code. To do this, it is best use Notepad to develop your HTML files.

To view more information on this topic go to Notepad for HTML

Return to Table of Contents

HTML Tags (Instructions)

As stated previously, text is embedded in an HTML file with commands to format material and link to other documents such as pictures and sound files. These commands are more commonly referred to as Tags. You can quickly learn the basic tags to develop simple web pages. In addition to the basic formating tags, you will soon want to explore the HREF tag , used to create links to other documents. Of course web pages can display graphics and for that you will want to use the IMG tag . To display information in a structured fashion, you can use the TABLE tag . Note that tags can be typed in either upper or lower case - Browsers don't care. However there is a convention (not always observed) to type the tags in upper case just to make them stand out better from the text in the file.

To view more information on this topic go to HTML Basics

Return to Table of Contents

HTML References

It is essential to understand the basic HTML tags, even if you use an HTML generator such as FrontPage. Often you can look at code that others have placed on the Internet but you will have trouble adapting this for your own pages if you do not understand HTML. There are probably hundreds of HTML reference books available and many more Internet sites with information.

To view more information on this topic go to HTML References

Return to Table of Contents

Transferring Files - FTP

You can develop all of your files on your local PC. You can even test them out there with your Internet Explorer program. However, to make them available to everyone on the Internet, you need to transfer them to a Server. There are different ways to do this but basically you need a program to transfer files from your PC to the server. WS_FTP is such a program. For more information on how to obtain it and use it refer to this site: Ipswitch
Note: The users guide is available in English, Spanish, and other languages.

To view more information on this topic go to FTP Usage

Be sure to read the explanation very carefully on File Protections. Just putting the file on a Server doesn't mean people can see it there unless you set up the protections accordingly.

If you are experiencing some difficulty transferring files go to FTP Trouble Shooting

This page was last modified:

pvh Page Educational Material