Introduction to hypertext

Think for a moment about what makes the Internet different from any other means of communication and getting information. It isn't only that it uses computers, but that it enables you to move from document to document stored in different places throughout the world. The mechanism that permits this is called hyperlinking. When you write a web page in Composer, or any other web-authoring software, the program changes what you write into HTML

HTML stands for hyter text mark up language. It is the language of the Internet. It is not a real language, but a way of inserting special markers, called tags, in a document so that a browser will display it the way you want it to.

HTML also makes it possible to put hyperlinks in web pages. You used a hyperlink to get to this page. Hyperlinks make it possible to move between pages on a web site or between web sites.

It is possible to produce web pages without knowing anything about HTML, but if you want to do interesting things on your web page, and have more control over how different browsers display your work, it can be a good idea to learn a little.

A good way to begin to learn about HTML is to look at the html other people have used to write their pages in. If you are looking at this page in Navigator, choose View from the menu bar and you will see a drop down menu. If you choose 'Page Source' from that menu, you will see this page in HTML. The main thing you will notice is lots of '<'s and '>'s. These angle brackets are used to contain the tags which the browser is able to use to interpret how the page should be displayed. Incidentally, if you are using Internet Explorer, the menu item is called Source.

This is a very simple page. It has one heading, one font, uses a few italics and has three hyperlinks. Other pages you look at will often be much more complex, but they still use the same basic mark up language.