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Part 3: Creating Your Own Web Page

You are now going to learn to write hypertext for the World-Wide Web. It is written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) format. There are many documents already designed to teach you HTML. Therefore, I have chosen one of these already written documents and you will use it. Before you even do that, you will write a very simple document from a template.

Assignment

For your first document, I am giving you a typical document to edit. It contains header information (which you should include in every HTML document), a title, a header, some paragraphs, a link, and a reference to a picture which gets included. At the moment, the document looks like Template. Save this document as follows: Under the View menu, choose Document Source. The document source should open up in the Simple Text editor. In Simple Text, under the File menu, choose the Save As option. Select a name for the document, such as "test1".

If you see something in a Web document that you want to try, use the Source command in the View menu to see how it was done.

In order to change your document, if is not already open in Simple Text, open it: within the editor Simple Text, choose Open from the File menu, and select the name you chose for your document, such as "test1". Click on Open. Now that it is open, change the title from "Math 5337: Title, Simple HTML Template" to a title of your choice. Change the Header from "Header, Simple HTML Template" to a header of your choice. Change the text to a short paragraph of text of your own. Be careful not to destroy the < TITLE > or < /TITLE > and < H1 > or < /H1 > markings. Choose the Save option from the File menu. Click on the Netscape window to return to Netscape. Try to load your document into Netscape using the Open File command from the File menu.

Experiment with changing the text to see where it appears in the document. You will now go through a tutorial. As you learn new things from, you can add them to the document that you just created. In this lab, you should complete an HTML document on a subject of your choice. Choose a topic that will be easy so that you can concentrate on learning the hypertext. In your final project, you will be writing a hypertext document with challenging content.

You should end up with a document containing the following items:

A Title. That's the name you see in the top margin of the Netscape window.
At least one Header.
More than one paragraph.
A figure. So that you see how to do it, try linking to a different figure than is already included. If you have trouble thinking of a figure, link to http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/docs/forum/triangle_puzzle/gasket1.gif
A link to another document. If you cannot think of a document, link to http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/.

As soon as you have successfully changed and saved the template above, go to the tutorial Geometry Forum Down to Earth HTML Tutorial. This document is located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. (If you find this to be too slow, use the Local Version. If at all possible, use the regular version, as some of the pictures will not be available in the local version.) You may also wish to refer back to the other Web pages listed under "Help Writing Hypertext" in Part 2. In addition, you can refer to the Advanced HTML Template for examples of more advanced options.

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The Geometry Center Home Page

Author: Evelyn Sander
Comments to: webmaster@www.geom.uiuc.edu
Created: Jun 09 1996 --- Last modified: Jul 31 1996