How To Make A Website With Free Software.
Does the idea of creating your own web site frighten you? Many people think it is just beyond them, it’s just too hard. You may be surprised at just how easy it can be.
At one time you needed to have an understanding of HTML in order to build a website. Today there are software products that allow you to build a website without any knowledge of HTML. They are known as wysiwyg (what you see is what you get)HTML editors.
There are programs such as Dreamweaver and Microsoft Front Page which are wysiwyg. They can be quite expensive. There are also free open source software products that would rival Dreamweaver and others in their site creation capabilities. Open source software is created by a worldwide community of programmers. Most of this software is powerful and is becoming easier to use.
The free website creation software or HTML editor is open source. It’s called NVU (Pronounced N-View). To download it just do a Google search for NVU and then choose the download suitable for your operating system.
Using NVU
NVU like all easy to use HTML editors is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). When you first open the program it looks much like any word processor program. But there are significant differences.
Unlike a word processor, you need to be able to work with images as well as text. You need to have control in placing each component where you want to. When you first start this, it will seem difficult. The truth is that everything is difficult until you know how. The purpose of this article is to help you master being able to place components just where you want.
Even though the screen looks much the same as a word processor, and many of the tools have the same or similar functions. There are differences. The main one is how to place objects where you want them to appear.
How do you place text and images just where you want them to be? The key to this is tables. The use of tables allows you to put anything just where you want them. If you need to place text next to an image, all you need to do is create a table with 2 columns. In one column you place the image and in the other you place the text.
You can also create tables inside tables. You are able to specify the width of the table in pixels or in percent. You can then center the table or have it locked to the right or the left. Creating a table inside a table will allow you have a box with its own content. Each table can have its own background color.
You can look at tables as the building blocks of the web page. These building blocks will allow you to set out your page to look as you want it to. Many of these blocks need to be invisible so that only the objects are seen and not what holds them there. You can do this by specifying the border as zero. This will mean that you table will not be seen.
This is the main thing you will need to master. Once you understand this the rest of the program will fall into place. In mastering this free software you are now able to use such programs as Dreamweaver and Microsoft Front Page as they are similar to use.
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