Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 24 Hours

By Dick Oliver

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Put Your HTML Page Online Today
  • I. Your First Web Page
  • Hour 1. Understanding HTML and XML
  • Hour 2. Create a Web Page Right Now
  • Hour 3. Linking to Other Web Pages
    • Linking to Another Web Page
    • Linking Between Your Own Pages
    • Relative Addresses
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 4. Publishing Your HTML Pages
  • II. Web Page Text
  • Hour 5. Text Alignment and Lists
  • Hour 6. Text Formatting and Font Control
  • Hour 7. Email Links and Links Within a Page
  • Hour 8. Creating HTML Forms
  • III. Web Page Graphics
  • Hour 9. Creating Your Own Web Page Graphics
  • Hour 10. Putting Graphics on a Web Page
  • Hour 11. Custom Backgrounds and Colors
  • Hour 12. Creating Animated Graphics
  • IV. Web Page Design
  • Hour 13. Page Design and Layout
  • Hour 14. Graphical Links and Imagemaps
  • Hour 15. Advanced Layout with Tables
  • Hour 16. Using Style Sheets
  • V. Dynamic Web Pages
  • Hour 17. Embedding Multimedia in Web Pages
  • Hour 18. Interactive Pages with Applets and ActiveX
  • Hour 19. Web Page Scripting for Non-Programmers
  • Hour 20. Setting Pages in Motion with Dynamic HTML
  • VI. Building a Web Site
  • Hour 21. Multipage Layout with Frames
  • Hour 22. Organizing and Managing a Web Site
  • Hour 23. Helping People Find Your Web Pages
  • Hour 24. Planning for the Future of HTML
  • VII. Appendixes
  • A. Readers' Most Frequently Asked Questions
  • B. HTML Learning Resources on the Internet
  • C. Complete HTML 4 Quick Reference
  • D. HTML Character Entities

Q&A

1. When I make links, some of them are blue and some of them are purple. Why? How come most of the links I see on the Internet aren't blue and purple?

   A link appears blue to anyone who hasn't recently visited the page to which it points. Once you visit a page, any links to it turn purple. These colors can be (and often are) changed to match any color scheme a Web page author wants, so many links you see on the Web won't be blue and purple. (Hour 11, "Custom Backgrounds and Colors," tells how to change the colors of text and links on your Web pages.)

2. What happens if I link to a page on the Internet and then the person who owns that page deletes or moves it?

   That depends on how that person has set up his server computer. Usually, people see a message saying page not found or something to that effect when they click the link. They can still click the Back button to return to your page.

3. One of my links works fine on my computer, but when I put the pages on the Internet it doesn't work anymore. What's up?

   The most likely culprits are

   • Capitalization problems. On Windows computers, linking to a file named Freddy.htm with <a href="freddy.htm"> will work. On most Web servers (which are usually UNIX machines), the link must be <a href="freddy.htm"> (or you must change the name of the file to Freddy.htm). To make matters worse, some text editors and file transfer programs actually change the capitalization without telling you!

   • Spaces in filenames. Most Web servers don't allow filenames with spaces. For example, you should never name a Web page, my page.htm. Instead, call it mypage.htm or MyPage.htm.

     The next hour explains how to upload files to a Web site and how to rename files once they're online so that you can make sure the spelling and capitalization are perfect.

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