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.
There was a time that you would need to know HTML to build a web site. Today you don?t need to have any knowledge of HTML and you will still be able to build a great looking site. Having some knowledge of HTML can be an advantage, but without it you will still be able to create that site.
There is open source software available that is every bit as powerful as the paid for variety. Open source software is created by a community of programmers around the world that work together to produce useful software. Just to highlight how good much of this open source software is; Have you heard of Apache Server Software? Apache is the preferred software used on most servers today. This is open source software, free.
The free open source software I have used is called NVU (pronounced N-View). If you search Google for nvu you will then be able to choose a download that suites your operating system.
How To Use NVU
Let?s look at using NVU. NVU is WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). It looks much like any word processor program but it does not work like one.
One of the main problems you face is how to place text and images where you want them. Like all things they are easy once you know how. In this article we are going to concentrate on how to put things where you want them to appear.
The screen looks like a word processor and all the text features work the same as any word program. You can choose the font, size, bold it, and so on as you would in any program.
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 create tables inside of tables. You can change the background color of any table or column. You can set the width of your table in pixels or percent. Percent allows you to create a table inside another table to a set size depending on the size of the table it is created into.
Tables are the building blocks of the HTML site. They allow you to control how your page will look. Tables can be made invisible so everything looks seamless. You can create an invisible table by making your border thickness 0 pixels.
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.
