HTML - Getting Started

What Do You Need?

You don't need any tools to learn HTML at W3Schools.

• You don't need any HTML editor
• You don't need a web server
• You don't need a web site

Editing HTML

In this tutorial we use a plain text editor (like Notepad) to edit HTML. We believe this is the best way to learn HTML.

However, professional web developers often prefer HTML editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, instead of writing plain text.

Creating Your Own Test Web

If you just want to learn HTML, skip the rest of this chapter.

If you want to create a test web on your own computer, just copy the 3 files below to your desktop.

(Right click on each link, and select "save target as" or "save link as")

mainpage.htm

page1.htm

page2.htm

After you have copied the files, you can double-click on the file called "mainpage.htm" and see your first web site in action.

Use Your Test Web For Learning

We suggest you experiment with everything you learn at W3Schools by editing your web files with a text editor (like Notepad).

Note: If your first web site contains HTML markup tags you have not learned yet, don't panic. You will learn much more HTML in the next chapters.

HTM or HTML Extension?

When you save an HTML file, you can use either the .htm or the .html extension. We use .htm in our examples. It is a habit from the past, when the software only allowed three letters in file extensions.

With new software it is perfectly safe to use .html.

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