Section 1. Introduction

Browsers
The browser is the piece of computer software that allows you to look at web pages.

The most common (and arguably best) browser is Microsoft Internet Explorer. You probably have this, or something similar, already. However, this can be downloaded for free by clicking on the image below...

HTML files
These are the basic files which form internet pages. These are most easily produced using FrontPage Express which comes free with Internet Explorer.

However to understand them properly we are going to create one using Notepad.

Step 1
Open Notepad. You can do this on most computers by clicking the Start button at the bottom left of the screen. Then click on Programs, Accessories and then Notepad.

Step 2
Type (or copy and paste) in the following code...

Step 3
Save this file as example.htm - This action is shown below.

Note that the Save as type box is highlighted as All Files. This is because Notepad's default file type is .txt files - we do not want this.

It is also important that you know in which folder you are saving the file.

Step 4
Load this file into your browser (Internet Explorer).

You may do this using one of two methods

1) Go into Windows Explorer, find example.htm (where you saved it) and double click on it.

2) Open Windows Explorer and type in the location of the file. In the case above this would be C:\MyInternet\example.htm

If everything has worked you should see the following...

Source code
The source code is the computer code that you typed into Notepad earlier.

To view any webpage's source code simply click on View and then Source. This is shown below...

To recap :

• The source code is the computer programming behind a web page. This is what forms an HTML file.

• The web page from the HTML file may be viewed using an Internet Browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer).

You are now ready to make your own web page.