Creating Web Pages for Dummies, 2nd Edition

Creating Web Pages For Dummies has empowered thousands of regular folks to publish personal, business, hobby, and other kinds of pages on the exciting and ever-expanding World Wide Web. Now completely updated, Creating Web Pages For Dummies, 2nd Edition, gets you up to speed on the latest Web authoring tools, HTML enhancements, and multimedia innovations. Authors Bud Smith and Arthur Bebak provide a brief Internet primer for those new to the brave new online world and then get down to business showing you how to use HTML (HyperText Markup Language), prepare graphics, and upload files to a Web server for the world to see. Smith and Bebak also share their own expert advice on designing attractive pages that don't take too long to download and on organizing sites in which users won't get lost. Best of all, Creating Web Pages For Dummies, 2nd Edition, comes with a bonus CD-ROM containing valuable software, such as America Online for Macintosh and Windows, a try-out version of Adobe's PageMill Web authoring tool, and other applications to make creating your own Web pages easy and fun.

In addition to teaching the fundamentals of page design and creation, Smith and Bebak spend some time explaining how to get pages onto the Web. They detail the mechanics of using no-charge page publishers like GeoCities, then go on to explain how to publish a page on AOL or Prodigy.

One section of this book deals with HTML development tools (the opening chapter is called "Be True to Your Tool"--go figure). The authors cover NaviPress, PageMill, HotDog, and BBEdit in depth, and address a few more development tools briefly. Unfortunately, the reader is left wondering what happened to coverage of FrontPage--a very popular development tool that many people already own.

A companion CD-ROM holds some page-editing tools, including a PageMill demo, a HotDog Demo, BBEdit Lite, and various other software.

If you represent a business, you'll probably want a more comprehensive text that will enable you to project a more professional image on the Web. But if you're a person who wants to publish a home page, this book will serve you well. --David Wall