Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates, Fourth Edition

Understanding Include Files 123
Figure 6.13
The same Web page as in Figure 6.12 but in Print Preview mode that uses a print style sheet to determine
what is printed.
Understanding Include Files
Include files are individual files that can be repeatedly called into different pages
(for example, ColdFusion, PHP, .NET, or JSP pages). A blessing to Web
designers, include files not only allow a site to be modular (various easily interchangeable
pieces), but more importantly, they also reduce maintenance time.
An example of an include file might be the footer text of a site. Instead of placing
the text in every page, a designer might include one line of code in every page
that calls that footer text, which is in only one file. Then, when the footer needs to
be edited, the designer edits only one page.
To use include files, all a designer needs is to host a site on a server that offers
server-side processing, such as Microsoft (.NET pages), Apache HTTP Server
(SHTML pages), Adobe ColdFusion server (CFM pages), JSP server (JSP pages),
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