Chapter 5. Learning How to Code with HTML

As I noted in the first chapter of this book, there's the easy way to create fancy item listings, and then there's the hard way. So far we've discussed the easy wayusing tools like eBay's Listing Designer, web-based code generators, and predesigned auction templates. But the problem with doing things the easy way is that you're limited to the designs that are presented to you; there's only so much customization allowed.

If you want to create a truly custom item listing, you have to design it yourself. This approach is doing it the hard way, as you create your listing from the ground up using HTML codes.

If you're unfamiliar with HTML (short for Hypertext Markup Language), it's the engine behind every web page you've ever viewed. HTML is also used to create every single eBay auction listing, even the ones that aren't that visually exciting. It's a coding language that lets you turn on and off all sorts of different text and graphic formatting and effects.

So if you want to build your own eBay auction templates from scratch, you have to know a little HTML. We'll get into specific applications of HTML in subsequent chapters; right now, it's time to learn how HTML works.