If you read the last issue of this article you should now have the basics of a web page template, very plain but a good starting point.
If you did not read the last issue you can
still read it HERE.
As you will probably have realised, and judging by my mail box many of you
did. The text in your web page is very plain, this is because we have not yet
told it to be otherwise.
Because of the nature of HTML and cross
platform compatibility, you have to tell it to be exactly what you want it to
be.
If you want it to be bold or in Italics you have to tell it
to be so. Even if you want to start a new text line you have to tell it to do
so!
Start by opening your web page in your Internet browser and
go back to the 'view source' option, as detailed in the last article. This will
open your source code and from here you will be able to make the alterations to
your web page.
Lets start with changing the page colour. The
background colour instructions to the browser are contained in the
'<BODY>' line tag and you will need to add the following to this
line:
<BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff">
The #ffffff instructions
are the colours, this one is white. To alter this to other colours try some of
the following.
#004040 = Black
#0000ff = Blue
#ff0000 = Red
#009900
= a nice Green colour!
Remember, once you have made an alteration
to your source code, you must save the changes and then refresh/reload your
browser window to view them.
And naturally if you have changed
the background colour you will need to change the text colour from the default
so that you can see it:
<BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff" TEXT="#000080">
This one #000080 is navy blue. You can use the numbers above for
the text also. So now lets start with our first text line and add a title.
Remember you have to tell it to be the title so start with the
following.
<H1>This Is My First Web Page<H1>
You
will notice that this is in bold as it is a title. Additional headings would be
<H2> etc.
Now the body text
<P>This is my first
web page<BR>
If this works it is a miracle!</P>
<P> = Paragraph, open and closing tags. <BR> = a line break.
A few simple tags for you to remember and don't forget they all
require a closing '/' in the closing tag.
<STRONG> = Bold
Text
<I> = Italics
<U> = Underlined
Your web
page should now look something like the following;
<HTML>
<TITLE>My Web Page</TITLE>
<BODY
BGCOLOR="#009900" TEXT="#ffffff">
<H1>This Is My First
Web Page</H1>
<P>This is my first web
page<BR>
If this works it is a miracle!</P>
<H2><U>About My Web Page</U></H2>
<P>If I have got this far I must be a
genius<BR></P>
<P><STRONG>No, but you have
<U>potential!</U></STRONG></P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
So that's it, a good basic
guide to HTML. We may follow these articles up with others but for now I hope
this has given you some understanding of the complexities of building a web
page. More information can always be found on the Internet, just do a search for
'HTML tutorials' on any good search engine such as AltaVista.
To
run a successful web site you DO need to understand how a web page is designed
because at some point you are going to need to edit those pages manually, if
only to include banner ad or page hit counter coding.
I would not
recommend any businessperson to go to the trouble of learning HTML in the year
2000 though, you will find learning French or German of more use.
There are now programs on the market called WYSIWYG ('What you see is what
you get') editors, and these are better suited to busy business use. Two we
recommend to our customers are Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe PageMill. They are
not the easiest of programs for the beginner to master but once mastered they
are relatively easy to use.
What I would recommend though is
that; if you want to have a web site and update it yourself then get an original
designed by a web page designer. That will then give you a professional looking
template from which you can update or add additional pages to. If your designer
will not let you do this then find another one - this is year 2000 not 1995!
A big mistake for any business to make is to launch a web site
that is not finished or unprofessional looking. This will do your business more
harm than good. Visitors never return to poor quality web sites, their memories
are very long, and remember this is your business not a home page for your pet
cat!
NNH.co.uk offers various web packages from designing a site
through to hosting it with the technical support available for you to make
updates yourself. E-mail us at: sales@nnh.co.uk for further details or visit
some of the
following sites:
http://www.nnh.co.uk/net/ Web Design
Packages
http://www.nnh.co.uk/nnh_host/
Business Quality Web
Hosting
Publisher: http://nnh.co.uk
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nnh.co.uk
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