# How to make a webpage?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 8, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078 "2014-08-08T02:05:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/21 "2014-08-08T21:31:11Z")

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> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> Don’t use Word. Use a text editor. A plain text editor.

That’s what I do. However I run a website for a conference, and have found that just about everyone (engineers but not programmers) thinks that this is just impossible and you positively, absolutely have to use some program to generate unreadable html pages.

However most of them didn’t have runoff as their first text formatter.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/22 "2014-08-08T22:05:34Z")

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> [@Voyager](#):
>
> However most of them didn’t have runoff as their first text formatter.

Using runoff (or any of its spin-offs like roff or troff) to format text is the equivalent (sort-of) to using a command-line system to do . . . just about anything. Those were the days when users actually had to learn detailed stuff to do anything.

If you used runoff, then presumably you also used a plain-text editor. [TECO](http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/2010/11/30/the-glorious-horror-of-teco/), to be specific.

Every newer generation of computer users and programmers needs to read, or re-read, [Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal](http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html) by Ed Post.

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**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/23 "2014-08-09T01:41:01Z")

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> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Here, by the way, is my HTML stub starter-page template:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
> 
> <!-- The head section: -->
> 
> <head>
> <title>xxxxx</title>
> </head>
> 
> <!-- The body section: -->
> 
> <body>
> 
> <noscript>
> <h2><font color="red">You probably ought to enable JavaScript!</font></h2>
> </noscript>
> Body text here
> </body>
> </html>
> 
> ```

Your doctype is a bit out of date. XHTML never really caught on.

Better:

```auto

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
...

```

c.f., [W3Schools](http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_doctype.asp)

Also, the noscript is sort of still supported by modern browsers (though not by XHTML if I remember right), but its use has fallen out of favor. If you don’t have JavaScript in your page, you won’t need it at all, and if you do, the noscript tag doesn’t really behave all that well anyway.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/24 "2014-08-09T15:26:26Z")

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> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> And I mean no disrespect to\*\* JLA\*\*. He knows I know he’s not an idiot. He just…doesn’t know this thing. I’m hoping he doesn’t think I’m an idiot because I can’t fly a plane!

That’s the thing. I could create a webpage ‘from scratch’ ten years ago, but it’s not ‘my thing’. I can fly an airplane and a helicopter (not at the same time 😛 ). I’m a pretty good cook. I can write programs in the archaic language of Easytrieve. I know, and can do, all sorts of things. But it always seems a miracle if I work on a car and everything goes well the first time. With pages, I don’t have a need to do much with them. It may be the easiest thing in the world to people who do it all the time, but I don’t. I can see how my questions on this subject would be like me telling someone ‘OK, first you make a roux,’ and they get a blank expression because they’d never heard of it.

Anyway, whatever I used a decade ago was WYSIWYG. I made the pages using that, and then tweaked the HTML later. In this case, I don’t have a WYSIWYG editor but I do have the source code. Using TextEdit worked, and now all I have to do is FTP it to the site… when I get around to it.

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**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/25 "2014-08-11T03:06:00Z")

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> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> Anyway, whatever I used a decade ago was WYSIWYG. I made the pages using that, and then tweaked the HTML later. In this case, I don’t have a WYSIWYG editor but I do have the source code. Using TextEdit worked, and now all I have to do is FTP it to the site… when I get around to it.

Microsoft word is WYSIWYG …

But this means that “Save as : HTML” Means to make HTML to produce the screen as you see it. HTML that says "Put a \< , then h , then t, then m … " and so …

You can use a Word processor (like Word) as a text editor, you just want to save as Text… so you only get the characters not the WYSIWYG stuff

Seamonkey is a WYSIWYG HTML editor made for Windows, Mac OS and Linux

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**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-make-a-webpage/695078/26 "2014-08-11T13:16:41Z")

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> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> Don’t try to confuse a newbie with “rank me one thousandth of a percent higher!” coding “must-dos” decided on by SEO managers.

+1. The difference between good, solid code and the insanity practiced by SEO mavens (= voudon witch doctors) is considerable.

> [@Claverhouse](#):
>
> I despise SEO as well as the next man, but whatever Google’s faults I doubt they are describing best practice so as to game their own system.

Google advocates what’s good for their search protocols. The faster their bots can move through a site without redirection, the better for Google. Utterly meh for everyone else including the site owner.

ETA: Anyone who allows Word anywhere near serious web code needs to be beaten with a cricket bat.

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