Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : HTML Coding Using WORD
conflicted
06-15-2006, 05:47 PM
Hi,
I'm new at HTML coding and wonder if there is any advantage to using WORD instead of Notepad. The tutorial I am using http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/...78141#beginning claims that WORD is easier than Notepad, but I have already run into a problem using WORD. Here are the instructions I followed:
When you write to the word processor you will need to follow a few steps:
1. Write the page as you would any other document.
2. When you go to save the document (Here's the trick), ALWAYS choose SAVE AS.
3. When the SAVE AS box pops up, you will need to save the page in a specific format. Look at the SAVE AS dialogue box when it pops up: Usually at the bottom, you find where you will be able to change the file format.
4. If you have a PC, save your document as ASCII TEXT DOS or just TEXT. Either one will work.
5. If you have a MAC, save your document as TEXT.
I saved the "filename" to .html, but unfortunately none of the selections under "save as type" are ASCII TEXT DOS or just TEXT as the instructions state. These are the selections that appear in the WORD drop down window:
- Word Document
- Web Page
- Web Page, Filtered
- Web Archive
- Document Template
- Rich Text Format
----------
From the above selections, saving as "Web Page" made the most sense, but I tried them all. The problem I'm having is that when I tried to open it in the browser, only the HTML coding came up:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>My first HTML document</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello <strong>world!</strong><p>
<br>
<p>This is my very first HTML page.<p>
</body>
</html>
----------
When I used Notepad and opened it in the browser, it displayed correctly:
Hello world!
This is my very first HTML page.
----------
A few questions based on my issue:
How do I save HTML coding using WORD, and how can I get it to display correctly when opening it in the browser?
Do most agree that WORD is easier than Notepad, or should I just use Notepad?
Is the HTML tutorial I am using a good one?
If not, any recommendations on a good one would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
-conflicted
JPnyc
06-15-2006, 06:07 PM
The 1st and most urgent suggestion is, do NOT use Word for coding anything, ever. Use notepad or wordpad or some editor designed for coding. Word has non-printing characters that will mess up your page.
NogDog
06-15-2006, 06:08 PM
I would recommend using neither. There are many good-to-excellent text editors out there that you can use and which have features specifically tailored to helping with the editing of HTML documents; and many of them are available for free.
I use one of those free editors: HTML-Kit. (See http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ .) Others probably will chip in with their preferences soon. :)
kaurotu
06-15-2006, 10:51 PM
heck yes.......i agree with nogdog
i love html-kit, it has great tools and lots of easy to use help functions
o yeah....NEVER USE WORD
thank you
Charles
06-16-2006, 04:14 AM
And never believe anything that you read in HTML Goodoes - it's abysmal and more wrong than right.
kiwibrit
06-16-2006, 05:16 AM
I avoid Word - but wouldn't it be possible to use it, if you save with .txt file extension, with US-ASCII code, then rename the file with the .html (or whatever) extension? Very clunky way of doing things, though.
JPnyc
06-16-2006, 06:53 AM
It's possible to use word just as is, and save with a .htm extension, it's just ill-advised that's all. Like I said, word has non-printing characters. You can also write an html doc in excel as well, but I don't recommend it.
WebJoel
06-16-2006, 08:42 AM
I like "EditPlus2". I think that it's easier to learn & use than HTML-kit. But totally, -avoid WORD and wordpad is just plain difficult to use. Notepad? Good to know how to use it, but an html-editor like EditPlus2 or HTML-kit is far better. -the color-coding of your typed text (for syntax checking) alone is worth the switch.
JPnyc
06-16-2006, 08:55 AM
I use EditPlus2 for Java but for plain old web formatting langs and JS it's overkill, for me. I do like the program though.
Grykat
06-16-2006, 02:42 PM
I've used Word, chosen Save As.. Web Page, and it worked just fine for me. I like it for single page websites when I want access to all the built in clip art, or for the teachers on my campus who are very famliar with Word and would faint dead away if I suggested they learn to code. I name the file and allow it to assign whatever extension (usually .htm) that it wants. If you'd like to attach your Word file and send it to me, I'll look at it and see if it works for me. - Kat
the tree
06-16-2006, 02:57 PM
I've used Word, chosen Save As.. Web Page, and it worked just fine for me.Really? You mean you actually managed to create a page that looked even slightly reasonable on more than one version of one browser?
Grykat
06-16-2006, 03:42 PM
http://komodo.utsystem.edu/MED/kgryta/
Mind you, I'm not trying to do anything fancy - just a project page for my graduate degree.
I've accessed it in IE and Firefox with no problems, thought I do notice that one image doesn't display in Firefox but does in IE - but if you didn't know to look in code, you wouldn't know it was missing. I supposed I"ll mess with it some this summer to figure out why - the profile page (linked from that index) was also created in Word, and the image displays properly in that one. - Kat
ray326
06-16-2006, 05:58 PM
Looks amazingly passable considering it has 64 errors and 151 warnings.
Grykat
06-16-2006, 06:27 PM
Looks amazingly passable considering it has 64 errors and 151 warnings.
Curious - what did you use to generate your list of errors and warnings? I just create a page to fill a need, and test it in IE 5 and 6 and FireFox. As long as the essential parts of the site work and remain compatible across platforms, then the majority of people who would be viewing my site could view it and it meets the needs.
The original thread topic was whether you could use Word to create a web page, and in fact you can for simple web pages. - Kat
kiwibrit
06-16-2006, 06:38 PM
W3c validator (http://validator.w3.org/).
Your pages should validate, so that they may have a reasonable chance of being used satisfactorily by a wide variety of browsers, operating systems and platforms. Validation is also the starting point for accessibility.
Grykat
06-16-2006, 06:45 PM
But what do you use to check that, if you are just coding in Word or Notepad or Wordpad? Is there an online resource that will check that? That is an area that I obviously have not had must experience with.
NM (blushing ) - missed the link, it was too subtle for me :D
Grykat
06-16-2006, 07:06 PM
Interesting - using W3c Validator, Just for comparison, http://www.cnn.com has 34 errors, http://state.tx.us has 41, http://www.whitehouse.gov has 54 - but www.microsoft.com curiously enough only has 2, apple.com has 9, and adobe.com has 4. University of Texas passed validation (wow!)
American Medical Association, on the other hand, has 212 - shame on them!!
Okay, this is a good tool for me to start using with my campus websites - I can see what errors I need to deal with. The only reservation I have is that many of the errors and exceptions have to do with coding that was internal to Front Page (borders, frames,themes and such) - so I'll have to experiment to see if correcting that coding will cause the website to malfunction. And no, I can't just dump FP - that is the package that the district provides for all the campuses to use for web development- unless you count Microsoft Publisher (ugh!!)
t2090
06-16-2006, 09:41 PM
do Not Use Word For Computetr Languages
felgall
06-16-2006, 10:58 PM
Interesting - using W3c Validator, Just for comparison, http://www.cnn.com has 34 errors, http://state.tx.us has 41, http://www.whitehouse.gov has 54 - but www.microsoft.com curiously enough only has 2, apple.com has 9, and adobe.com has 4. University of Texas passed validation (wow!)
American Medical Association, on the other hand, has 212 - shame on them!!
That means that of the sites you looked at only the University of Texas site is guaranteed to work properly on modern browsers. All of those other sites require the browser to make assumptions about what to do with the invalid code and while most browsers will guess right for most minor errors there will be browsers where those pages don't work - eg. pages with alt attributes missing from image tags will not work properly in web readers and so blind people will not be able to access the page properly.
Of the thousands of possible programs out there for creating web pages Word ranks at about position 999,999. The one Microsoft program that is intended for producing web pages is Frontpage and even that has trouble producing pages that will work properly in browsers other than IE.
kiwibrit
06-17-2006, 03:36 AM
I think it is best to validate pages as they are created, using the w3c validator. However, if you have a site that requires validation, the the WDG validator (http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/) is a very useful tool. If that leaves you in any doubt, I would then cross check the page in question with the w3c validator.
Microsoft's Expression Web Designer (http://www.digitalmediadesigner.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=43025) looks a promising alternative to Dreamweaver, if you are using a Windows-based PC.
ray326
06-17-2006, 03:58 PM
Curious - what did you use to generate your list of errors and warnings?HTML Tidy embedded in Firefox.
As long as the essential parts of the site work and remain compatible across platforms, then the majority of people who would be viewing my site could view it and it meets the needs.If you create valid content then every can "see" it, even those that can't see it with their eyes.
The original thread topic was whether you could use Word to create a web page, and in fact you can for simple web pages. - KatI'll go out on a limb here and posit that in fact you cannot create even a "simple" valid HTML document with any version of Microsoft Word.
felgall
06-17-2006, 04:27 PM
The "HTML" created by Word is intended to be converted back into a Word document and therefore contains 90% proprietary tags for handling that.
The new version of Word will save as XMS so it should be possible to convert that directly into valid XHTML with a correctly written XSLT filter.