HTML 4 For Dummies - Softcover

Tittel, Ed; Pitts, Natanya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0764519956 ISBN 13: 9780764519956

Publisher: Wiley Publishing, 2003

Synopsis

Simply put, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the magic Web authors use to create readable, attractive pages for all the world to see. At first glance, building Web pages may seem to require years of arduous training, advanced aesthetic capabilities, and hours of exhausting trial-and-error exercises. But if you can tell somebody how to drive across town to your house, you can certainly build a Web document that performs to your expectations.

HTML 4 For Dummies, 4th Edition, shows the full range of design and technical elements you need to build good-looking, useful Web pages, and gives you the know-how and confidence to do it! This remarkable markup reference gets down to the basics about

• Coming up with a document structure
• Working with blocks of text
• Laying out lists of several kinds
• Linking to online resources
• Adding images to your page
• Setting colors and backgrounds

Taking HTML to the next level, HTML 4 For Dummies, 4th Edition, introduces the finer points of tables, frames, forms and far more. The indispensable guide covers common tools and techniques that can extend HTML's capabilities through

• The joy and wonder of Cascading Style Sheets
• Scripts that turn your pages into an interactive playground
• Multimedia options that serve up audio, video or animation
• Database connections that open the doors to an information treasury
• Interrelated HTML documents that add up to a full-blown Web site 

Loaded with examples, illustrations, and step-by-step instructions, HTML 4 For Dummies, 4th Edition, can get you going or growing with your Web page-building know-how. Whether your online presence serves as a personal hobby, a greeting to the world, or a managed, professional resource on the job, this up-to-date resource is the one to rely on for all your Web adventures.

About this title

Review

HTML 4 for Dummies provides an introduction to Web publishing, but it contains less information than it should. If you don't know HTML at all, you'll be able to extract some worthwhile information from these pages. But if you're at all familiar with HTML and want this book to bring you up to speed on what's new in the HTML 4 specification, you'll be disappointed.

The book presents a super-simple "Hello, World" HTML document that illustrates the most basic structure of an HTML document. The authors then spend 100 pages flailing around with confusing discussions of organization and graphic design. (Sample sentence: "The Web is both a cooperative and a competitive environment; it depends on interdependence, but it's impatient with boredom.") Eventually, they get back to the information about tags that the intended audience needs--and they do a good job of explaining how to build headers, images, links, tables, and frames with HTML code. But the coverage would be better if they had included more illustrations of what the tags do. The discussion of cascading style sheets (CSS) is feeble, and there's no DHTML (dynamic HTML) code in evidence at all.

Your best bet is to look for a better HTML 4 text for beginners. HTML 4 for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide is a good choice, as is HTML 4 Bible. --David Wall

From the Publisher

Discover how to:
Create user-friendly pages
Design appealing layouts
Use templates or create Web pages from scratch
Link documents, pages, and sites
Add sound and graphics
Edit text and images

PLUS A BONUS CD-ROM including:

Trial Versions of:
FrontPage 2000
NetObjects Fusion 5.0
HotDog Professional 5.5

Freeware:
Cold Fusion Express
BBEdit Lite

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley Publishing
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0764519956
• ISBN 13: 9780764519956
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 432