HTML, XHTML & CSS

Introduction
Welcome to the wild, wacky, and wonderful possibilities of the World
Wide Web, or more simply, the Web. In this book, we reveal the
ins and outs of the markup languages that are the Web’s lifeblood — the
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and its cousin, XHTML, along with the
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language used to make other stuff look good.
Because HTML and XHTML (we use (X)HTML in this book to refer to both)
and CSS are used to build Web pages, learning to use them brings you into
the fold of Web authors and content developers.
If you’ve tried to build your own Web pages but found it too forbidding, now
you can relax. If you can dial a telephone or find your keys in the morning,
you too can become an (X)HTML author. No kidding!
This book keeps the technobabble to a minimum and sticks with plain
English whenever possible. Besides plain talk about hypertext, (X)HTML, and
the Web, we include lots of examples, plus tag-by-tag instructions to help
you build Web pages with minimum of fuss. We also provide examples about
what to do with your Web pages after they’re created so you can publish
them. We explain the differences between HTML4, HTML5, and XHTML as
well, so you can decide whether you want to stick with the best-known and
longest-lived Web markup language (HTML) or its later and greater successor
(XHTML).
This book has a companion Web site that contains (X)HTML and CSS examples
from its chapters in usable form — plus pointers to cool widgets you can
use to embellish your own documents and amaze your friends. Visit www.
dummieshtml.com and start browsing from there.
About This Book
Think of this book as a friendly, approachable guide to taking up (X)HTML
and CSS and building readable, attractive Web pages. These things aren’t
hard to learn, but they pack lots of details that you must handle as you build
your own Web pages. Topics in this book include: