How to create a Web Page ( Tutorial 1 )

This page explains everything that is needed for anyone wanting to create their own web page. Below this paragraph is the table of contents. Click on any of the content subjects and it will take you to that section of the guide. To return to the table of contents at any time, click the "Return to Index" link in the frame on the side of the page. I hope this guide is helpful.

Getting Started

There are basically two ways to make a web page. The first way is to create the page(s) offline and then upload them to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) via FTP. The second way is to create your web page(s) online using a Telnet program by accessing your UNIX account, if you have one.

If you are creating your web page(s) offline, do so in any text editing or word processing document. Make sure that when you save your document, you save it as a "text", "plain text" or "text only" document. Otherwise it will not be read properly by a web browser. Once you have created your page(s), you will need to contact your ISP about how to go about uploading them to your server.

If you have a UNIX account, you can create your web page(s) online. You first need to get a program that can access your UNIX account. I recommend Telnet for the Mac or Ewan for Windows 95/98.

Once you can access your account, you need to make a new directory called "public_html". You can do this by typing:

mkdir public_html

After this, change your directory to this new directory called "public_html".

cd public_html

If you want to, you can make other directories, one for all the web pages that you make, and one for all of the graphics that you have. Follow the same steps as above to do this.

Next, you need to think of a filename for your page (this is not a title, but what will be in the URL). A common filename for a main web page, is "index". Once you've decided on this, add ".html" to the end of it. Then type (i.e.)

pico index.html

Of course, use your page's filename, instead of this one. Next, you need to gain some knowledge of the many HTML commands. Lucky for you, I've already gotten some of the basic commands for you. Follow the index below, to decide what to put on your page, and how to do it. Once you've gotten started, exit your page. You can do this by pressing control-x. Then you need to type:

chmod 744 index.html

Only do this with the filename of your page. You only need to do this the very first time that you leave your web page. This command will make sure that nobody else can delete your page. You will need to do this to any other pages that you make in the future. Then, look at your page on the WWW. Lets say that your server is "www.domain.com", your username is "username", and the name of your page is "index.html". The URL would normally be:

http://www.domain.com/~username/index.html

However, you will need to contact your ISP for your URL.

If you have made separate directories for pages and graphics, then you need to include that in the URL also. Lets say that you made a directory for all of your web pages, called "Pages". The new URL would be: 

http://www.domain.com/~username/Pages/index.html

Title

The first thing to put on your web page, is a title. The title is what will show up in the very top of the window. Let's say that your title is going to be "John Doe's Web Page", you would type:

<title>John Doe's Web Page</title>

In HTML, every command is surrounded by <'s, and >'s. And in most commands, you need to tell the web browser when to end this command. You do this by putting a back slash (/) in front of the ending command, as in above. Since HTML isn't case sensitive, <title> is the same as <TITLE>, which is the same as <TiTLe>. Next, you need to decide what you want to put on your page. Text, links, graphics, and text fields, are just a few ideas. Follow the table of contentsabove to decide how, and what to put on your page.