by Mike McGrath
2003 • Barnes & Noble Books
192 pages / ISBN 0760747792 (paperback)
To design web pages, computer users must know the code: HTML. HyperText Markup Language, invented by British researcher Tim Berners-Lee in the late 1980s, has become the staple binding together our free exchange of information on the Web, such as through the page you are reading now.
There are plenty of comprehensive HTML guides in existence that can help amateurs to design their first web pages. This menu includes Mike McGrath's HTML in Easy Steps, an installment of the full-color In Easy Steps series originally published in England by Computer Step. McGrath, who has authored several titles in the series, here provides an overview of HTML 4 with full use of CSS (cascading style sheets) notation.HTML in Easy Steps divides HTML skills into 15 chapters running anywhere from 7 to 19 pages each on a specific area of markup language. Each chapter starts with a brief, one-paragraph description of its objective and devotes each page to an individual markup technique. McGrath explains the technique's place in HTML 4 and lists in distinct type how the function should be codified. Each coding example is illustrated by a detailed screen capture or diagram.
Emphasizing CSS notation, HTML in Easy Steps uses simple English and repetition in ways that help to build computer skills. Readers should begin feeling capable of building the most rudimentary web pages, with the book serving as an excellent hands-on reference. It can also become a helpful supplement for students or office members who perform infrequent web maintenance.
Space limitations may have prevented McGrath from adding helpful features like quizzes or a book-ending 'final project' that brings together all of the skills we have encountered. There are also no cheat sheets to speak of, but the book is organized well enough to serve as a quick look-up guide in its own right. An additional download of all coding examples can be obtained from its publisher's website, free of charge.
Basic, well-organized, and inexpensive, McGrath's book is a good starting point for newcomers (even with HTML's advance to version 5) and a useful brush-up for those who are stepping back into web design after an absence. Retailed in the U.S. by Barnes & Noble Books, HTML in Easy Steps is available in occasional back copy on the Internet and there are probably a few copies still floating around in libraries and store bargain bins.
