Notepad Instructions

This will be the most common program that PC HTML programmers will use. Notepad can edit HTML, and at the same time you are able to view what you edit, in a web broswer. Below, are step-by-step instructions on how to get Notepad to create an HTML document.

Step 1: The first step is to create the HTML document which you will later be editing with notepad. There are a series of steps you will need to do in order to do this, please follow them closely.

First, right click on the desktop, select New, and from the pop-up list select Text Document. You will now see a new text document on your desktop titled New Text Document.

Now, you will have to change your computers settings so you are able to see file extensions. To do this, open up Explorer (Explorer refers to any window or folder). Once there, selectView, and from the drop down list select Folder Options.

In the window that pops up, you will see three tabs on the top. Click the second tab, labeled, View. You will now see a list of check boxes. Find the option that says Hide File Extensions for Known File Types and make sure this box is not checked.

Click apply and go back to the desktop. You will now see the file you just created is called New Text Document.txt, with the .txt extension added on the end. Right click on this file, and rename it to filename.html. Filename can be whatever you want, but the ending must end with .html. Once this is done, you will notice that the icon will change, and you now, have a valid HTML file on your desktop.

You are now able to change the settings for viewing extensions back off if you wish, but it is not required.

Step 2: The second step is to open up this file using Notepad. To do this, open Notepad. If you can't find notepad, click the start menu, select Run and type in Notepad.

When Notepad is opened, go to File/Open. Then, locate your HTML document you created in Step 1 and click open. If your HTML document does not appear, be sure to set "File Of Type:" to "All Files" instead of "Text Documents". You are also able to simply drag your file into the Notepad program if you find that easier.

Step 3: The third and final step is to set your computer up so that when you update the HTML document in notepad, you can quickly see the changes you made to your page in your browser. To do this, first open up the HTML file in notepad. Then, double-click on the HTML file itself.

You should now have two windows open. One being Notepad, and the other being your web browser. Now, when you type HTML in Notepad, you can quickly view the results by going to the browser and hitting refresh.

Simpletext Instructions

This will be the most common program that Macintosh HTML programmers will use. Simpletext can edit HTML, and at the same time you are able to view what you edit, in a web browser. Below, are step-by-step instructions on how to get Simpletext to create an HTML document.

Step 1: First, you need to open the Simpletext program. You may or may not know where it is. If you do, just open it, but if you don't, you can easily find it by opening the "Find" program and doing a search for "Simpletext".

Step 2: Now, you will need to save is as an HTML document. To do this, go up to File/Save As, select a location to save it to, and then, save it as filename.html. You can change filename to whatever you want but you need the .html on the end.

Step 3: Last, is to set your computer up so that when you update the HTML file in Simpletext, you are able to quickly view the results of your HTML in your web browser. To do this, first open up the HTML document in Simpletext. Then, launch your web browser and drag your HTML file into the web browser. Now, when you type HTML in Simpletext, you can quickly view the results by going to the browser and hitting refresh.