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View Source

You can learn everything you need to know about HTML in two words: View source. Some would say it's the only lesson you need to learn about Web publishing.

Web pages all come with their own set of instructions, telling everyone who cares to look exactly how the site was constructed, no secrets here!

This is how it works: The Web's creator allows you to view the source code (in other words, the HTML document that dictates what the page looks like) of any page on the Web. So any time you're wondering "How did they do that?" all you have to do is select "View Source" from the browser menu (usually the menu name is "View," and the option is "Document Source" ), and the HTML file will open - usually using SimpleText or whatever word-processing software you have on your machine.

Once the file is open, you can save it, study it, cut and paste from it, anything you want. Well, almost anything - you can't actually change the code so that it alters the page, since you're just viewing a copy of the file, not the file itself.

Bear in mind, though, while it can tell you all you need to know about the HTML, it won't tell you what's happening on the server side. In other words, if a site's hooked up to a database or using CGI scripts to enhance functionality, the source won't reveal anything beyond the fact that a script exists if the server you are on doesn't support those specific utilities.

All in all, Viewing Source is the best way to learn HTML and to keep on top of what Web publishers are doing, and how they're doing it.

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