XHTML Lessons

A Web page consists of plain text formatted with a coding language called HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The HTML language is constantly in development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As of July 2003, the current version is Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) version 1.0 and that is the version I will teach you on this Web site. By learning good coding practices using XHTML 1.0 you will gain the skills you need to add other technologies to your site such as style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. Take your time and work through each lesson below in the order presented. The lessons build on one another, so don't skip around. These lessons will introduce you to the most commonly-used tags in XHTML version 1.0. For a complete beginner's course on XHTML, click the icon on the right and buy HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS. For an exhaustive reference on XHTML, click the icon on the right and buy HTML & XHTML the Definitive Guide.

Today some people ask the question: Why do I need to learn to code pages by hand? It is true that most Web developers today, including me, use graphical Web development tools like Dreamweaver or GoLive to create their pages. These tools make it possible to develop Web sites more quickly because you do not have to type all the code by hand. Even with the popularity of these tools, however, it is extremely necessary to understand XHTML and the structure of Web documents. Without such an understanding, the pages you create will have more errors and will be more difficult to style and maintain.

XHTML Lessons

The hierarchical structure of a Web page.

<html>

<head>

<title>Page Title Here</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>Level 1 Heading Here</h1>

<p>A paragraph here.</p>

<p>Another paragraph

<a href="page.html">
A link within the paragraph</a>

</p>

</body>

</html>