HTML/CSS Any suggestion of a good self starter book on HTML?

[yungman]

I want a suggestion on a book for learning HTML programming. You all know what my level is...which is NOT MUCH. I just want to get a book that is not too hard to learn. One that I can experiment and play with.

Thanks

 

[DavidSnider]

It's not a book, but I still recommend it:

Getting started with the Web - Learn web development | MDN (mozilla.org)

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I want a suggestion on a book for learning HTML programming. You all know what my level is...which is NOT MUCH. I just want to get a book that is not too hard to learn. One that I can experiment and play with.

Thanks

You don't need a book, because the best "books" on HTML are written in HTML, CSS and Javascript. Here is one very good website:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/

Write your programs in Notepad, save it with the extension .html, and then open the file in a browser.

 

[yungman]

Thanks for the suggestions.

You don't need a book? is html that easy. I am learning C++, I have 4 books and still have to go online to search and come here to ask questions to learn! Ha ha, I am about to buy 4 used books on HTML, I guess I'll hold off first. There are plenty of used books, most are under $6 + $3.99 shipping.

I am not that good with computers, things might sound easy to your guys and are common sense...might not be for me!

Thanks

 

[lomidrevo]

You don't need a book, because the best "books" on HTML are written in HTML, CSS and Javascript. Here is one very good website:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/
Write your programs in Notepad, save it with the extension .html, and then open the file in a browser.

I agree, tutorials on w3schools are simple and very effective. Great for beginners!
Maybe I would just suggest to use Notepad++ as text editor, because it supports syntax highlighting for many languages, including HTML/JavaScript/CSS...

You don't need a book? is html that easy. I am learning C++,

Why don't you try the suggested tutorials first? It's for free and available right now. After couple of minutes you can evaluate yourself whether the content is convenient for you. You can make decision about buying books just after...

 

[sysprog]

@yungman: Judging from the rapid acquisition of understanding you've shown in the progress of your C++ queries, despite some 'hiccups', I agree with @Wrichik Basu here $-$ I think that you can jump into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without too much difficulty . . .

 

[sysprog]

@yungman, I think that @Wrichik Basu is right in advocating use of Notepad++ for html coding $-$ it's a very good general-purpose editor in many respects, and checking your html/css/javascript code is as simple as hitting Run -> Launch in (major browser name) . . .

 

[sysprog]

Thanks for the suggestions.

You don't need a book? is html that easy. I am learning C++, I have 4 books and still have to go online to search and come here to ask questions to learn! Ha ha, I am about to buy 4 used books on HTML, I guess I'll hold off first. There are plenty of used books, most are under $6 + $3.99 shipping.

I am not that good with computers, things might sound easy to your guys and are common sense...might not be for me!

Thanks

I suggest that before buying anything, you might right-click on some simple pages, select 'view page source', then save some sample sites, then tinker with a local copy and see whether your changes do what you think they will, and whether they do or they don't, you get to take a lesson.

 

[pbuk]

You are already familiar with Visual Studio so you could use that rather than installing and learning Notepad++.

Either create a new file with File -> New -> HTML file, or if you use @sysprog's suggestion, right-click on the file and you should be able to 'Open With -> Visual Studio'.

I know you like books but beware of second hand/deeply discounted HTML books on Amazon, they may not be up to date and will teach you stuff that is not relevant in today's browsers. You need a book that focuses on HTML5.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

You are already familiar with Visual Studio so you could use that rather than installing and learning Notepad++.

Visual Studio is fine, but there is nothing to learn in Notepad++. Compare that to IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio — the latter are far more complex, but once you grasp them, coding becomes easier. In addition, Notepad++ can be used to open varieties of files, and I really recommend anyone learning programming to have it installed in their computer.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

You don't need a book? is html that easy. I am learning C++, I have 4 books and still have to go online to search and come here to ask questions to learn!

No, you don't need any book. Basic HTML and CSS is THAT easy. C++ is a different story. The problem with books is that they tend to become outdated as new versions of software are released. For example, when learned Java for the first time, I used some books in school. Those books have become completely outdated because Java is releasing new versions every six months, and now I learn about new features from the release notes.

I suggest that before buying anything, you might right-click on some simple pages, select 'view page source', then save some sample sites, then tinker with a local copy and see whether your changes do what you think they will, and whether they do or they don't, you get to take a lesson.

Good idea, but just a note for @yungman: PF is not a simple site — if you right click on this page and view the source...

 

[pbuk]

I really recommend anyone learning programming to have [Notepad++] installed in their computer.

What if they have a Mac or Linux?

For Windows users, 5 years ago I would have agreed with you, however its utility has for almost all purposes* been surpassed by Visual Studio Code.

Note that VS Code is a totally separate product from Visual Studio; I only recommended VS for the OP because he already has it.

*VS code is designed for source code and does not cope well with large data files; I still have a copy of Notepad++ around for dealing with json and csv files over about 10k lines.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

What if they have a Mac or Linux?

The assumption was that the OP has a Windows PC.

 

[Mark44]

You don't need a book, because the best "books" on HTML are written in HTML, CSS and Javascript. Here is one very good website:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/

Write your programs in Notepad, save it with the extension .html, and then open the file in a browser.

I second this suggestion.

You don't need a book? is html that easy.

Yes, it's that easy.

 

[yungman]

Thanks guys, I will look into it deeper in the future, I already bookmarked the web pages suggested. I am not in hurry to learn, just want to get info. My plate is still very full learning C++, just thinking that after 4 1/2 months learning C++, I am still only working with the cmd window, it would be nice to have a little better screen graphics. I wrote the Directory program and showed to my wife, the first comment from her is she doesn't like the display format! It's just too plain.

I know those used books likely to be old, I am just cheap!

Thanks

 

[jack action]

What if they have a Mac or Linux?

I switched to Notepadqq when I switched to Linux. I like it.

You don't need a book? is html that easy. I am learning C++, I have 4 books and still have to go online to search and come here to ask questions to learn!

HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language. You need a browser (built with a programming language) to interpret a text with HTML markup.

There are lots of markup languages. For example, in the text area at the bottom of this page where you write your posts, you can use two types of markup languages: LaTeX and BB code. The first one is used to write mathematical equations and the other for formatting text. The latter is a simplified version of HTML.

 

[Vanadium 50]

We should probably take a step back and ask "Why do you want to learn HTML?" because that will influence which books (and other sources) are best.

If the answer is that you want to make one or two web pages, you don't need to learn HTML. There are plenty of applications that will let you create a web page with little more effort than a forum post. Even some browsers - like SeaMonkey - will do this. You don't need to know any HTML for this.

If the answer is that you want to learn HTML as a programming language, that's not what it is. It's a web page description language.

If the answer is something else, if you tell us what that something else is preople can provide more focused advice is.

 

[jtbell]

I really recommend anyone learning programming to have [Notepad++] installed in their computer.

What if they have a Mac or Linux?

MacOS comes with TextEdit. For a long time, I used it for all my coding on a Mac: C++, HTML+CSS, Perl. Then I switched to BBEdit, mainly for its syntax highlighting. The free version is fine for that. You just have to put up with occasional popups suggesting that you really ought to upgrade to the paid version.

The free version was originally a separate program called TextWrangler, which is what I actually used. When I bought a new Mac recently I found out that TextWrangler would not run on the then-latest version of MacOS [10.15 Catalina], so I switched to BBEdit and paid for it to thank them for all my years of using the free version.

I agree with V50 that you should consider what you want to do with HTML etc. If you just want to be able to put up a functional, good-looking website or blog, go straight to WordPress. You can get your feet wet with the free hosting at wordpress.com.

If you want to get some idea of what's "under the hood" of a web site, that's fine. But keep in mind it will take a while to learn enough to make something that's halfway professional-looking.

The path I took, starting almost 25 years ago, was to begin with plain old HTML (no CSS or Javascript). It's basically all about organizing the information on your page into paragraphs, lists, headings, etc., with no formatting beyond what a browser does by default.

Then, several years later, I added some CSS to convert my pages to a two-column format and change the text font from the browser's default. Still later, I converted from .html files to .php files so I could use some inline PHP code. But the .php files are still mostly plain old HTML+CSS.

The result is still very plain and functional, but that's enough for my purposes. I'm not trying to sell anything. See this example page. To see what it looks like without the CSS formatting (i.e. the result of the HTML coding only), use your browser to turn the styling off. In Firefox (MacOS), it's View --> Page Style --> No Style.

 

[yungman]

Is it easy?

Any book you can suggest?

Thanks

 

[jedishrfu]

Yes and no.

Often people start with html but then want to make cooler web pages and so need to understand CSS as well and then they want interactive pages which means javascript too.

The mix of these three elements have a lot of nuance and complexity that can be hard to learn.

and then there's the javascript frameworks like React, and Angular to name two.

 

[jedishrfu]

This website has summary/cheatsheets on html, css and Javascript for starters.

https://learnxinyminutes.com/

 

[yungman]

Thanks

What is the best way to start? Any suggestion of a book? I look at the link, what is it? What is learn x in y minutes?

Thanks

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Any book you can suggest?

Learning HTML from books is not quite recommended. There are some good tutorials online. I learned from this website: https://www.w3schools.com/html/

Soon, you will also need to learn CSS and then JavaScript. That website has tutorials on both of them.

 

[jtbell]

I first learned HTML from a book in the mid to late 1990s, probably one of the O'Reilly books. I still have "HTML: The Definitive Guide" from 1998. ("3rd Edition | Covers HTML 4.0")

Then I started to use some CSS in the early 2000s, and some PHP in the 2010s. I probably used O'Reilly books for those, too, but I can't find them. They're either buried in my closet or I gave them away when I moved out of my office.

Nowadays when I want to review something or learn a new technique, I use the w3schools site referenced earlier.

This book looks promising. I haven't seen it myself, but it has good reviews:

Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics 5th Edition by Jennifer Roberts