Anatomy of a Web Page
In this section, you're going to learn just what a web page is and
how it can be read by a browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape.
You'll also get a first look at the web design software, and construct
your very first web page. Before you get started, make sure you have
downloaded our free HTML Editor, so that you can follow along with the
lessons.
Download the Free HTML
Editor here
What is a web page?
Files on your computer come with extensions. If you wrote a letter
using Microsoft Word and saved it with the name "MyLetter",
the software would add three letters to the file name. Because it was
typed using Word, the three letters that get added to your filename
are .doc. So your file name will be "MyLetter.doc" and not
just "MyLetter". If you created a spreadsheet in Microsoft
Excel and called it "Accounts" the Excel software will add
its own three letter extension to your file name. It will add .xls.
So the file name will be "Accounts.xls" and not just "Accounts".
So you get a different three letter extension depending on the software
you used.
These three letter extensions are very important to computers. They
are used to identify the type of file it is. With a file extension,
Word can recognise its own documents. It sees the letters doc and says
"Ah yes, that's one of mine. I can open it." If it sees a
different extension, xls for example, it says "What the heck is
that?" You'll then get an error message telling you that the file
type is not recognised.
Web pages have their own file extensions. Oddly there are two different
extensions, a three letter file extension and four letter extension.
Web pages come with the extension .htm or .html. A browser can recognise
either extension. With our software, the four letter extension is used
when web pages are saved. (The letters HTML, incidentally, stand for
Hypertext Mark-up Language.)
When you Open up a web page with your browser, Internet Explorer for
example, the browser software checks the file extension, the same check
that Word and Excel makes. If it sees the .htm or .html extension it
knows it's a web page and then tries to open it. (Modern browsers, though,
can open up other types of files. Internet Explorer can open up your
Word documents and PDF files.)
Behind the scenes, however, the thing that Internet Explorer is trying
to open is really a text file that has had its extension changed from
.txt to .htm. The text file though will have special symbols and words,
called Tags. When the browser sees these Tags it goes to work, displaying
whatever you typed and hiding the Tags from your viewers.
If all that seems a little confusing, don't worry. It will become clearer
as you progress. For now, our goal is to design a first web page. So
load up your web design software, and let's begin.
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