First you need to create a text document containing the words that you want to appear on your Web page. Most word processing programs will work fine, as long as you give your document a name ending in .html (or .htm if you're working on a PC) and save the document as "Text Only." Type out your story, book review, fascinating facts about Jupiter, or whatever it is you want to publish. Here are some tips for organizing your text:
- Begin with
a title and an attention-grabbing greeting or introduction, so people will
know immediately what your page is about and will want to read
more.
- Think about logical places to insert breaks in your text. No
one wants to scroll down a long, uninterrupted block of text. Your page
will be a lot more readable if you put in frequent paragraph breaks and
horizontal rules (more about these later).
- Think about where you
might want to insert pictures, if you have them in electronic files. (More
about downloading images in Step #4.) A lot of pages start off with an
eye-catching image right at the top, next to the title.
- If your word processing program has an option for "smart" or "curly" quotes, turn it off! Curly quotes will show up on a browser as strange little icons rather than quotation marks. The straight quotes may not look as nice, but they're the ones you have to use for Web authoring.
