Section 2.2. A First HTML Document

2.2. A First HTML Document

It seems every programming language book ever written starts off with a simple example on how to display the message, "Hello, World!" Well, you won't see a "Hello, World!" example in this book. After all, this is a style guide for the new millennium . Instead, ours sends greetings to the World Wide Web:

 <html> <head> <title>My first HTML document</title> </head> <body> <h2>My first HTML document</h2> Hello, <i>World Wide Web!</i>  <! No "Hello, World" for us > <p>    Greetings from<br> <a href="http://www.ora.com">O'Reilly</a> <p> Composed with care by: <cite>(insert your name here)</cite> <br>&copy;2000 and beyond </body> </html>

Go ahead: type in the example HTML source on a fresh word processing page and save it on your local disk as myfirst.html . Make sure you select to save it in plain text format; word processor-specific file formats like Microsoft Word's .doc files save hidden characters that can confuse the browser software and disrupt your HTML document's display.

After saving myfirst.html (or myfirst.htm , if you are using archaic DOS- or Windows 3.11-based file-naming conventions) onto disk, start up your browser and locate and open the file from the program's File menu. Your screen should look like Figure 2-1. Though look-and-feel elements such as menus and toolbars differ between browsers, the window's contents should be quite similar.

2.2. A First HTML Document

Figure 2-1. A very simple HTML document