Web Design

About Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital ClassroomCreating eff ective websites requires an understanding of design principles, as well as the

underlying technology that is used to deliver and display content to your audience. The Web

Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom provides the information you need to design,

develop, publish, and maintain websites. Whether you are just starting out in the fi eld of web

design, or are experienced with design tools like Dreamweaver or Expression Web, you’ll

fi nd this book helpful at explaining the underlying concepts for organizing, creating, and

delivering web content eff ectively using best practices.

The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom helps you to get up-and-running

quickly. Although you can work through the lessons in this book in any sequence, we

recommend that you start in at the fi rst lesson and progress through the book in the

sequence in which they are presented. Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions,

background information, companion video tutorials, and lesson fi les.

The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom is like having your own expert

instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book

includes 12 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore web design, and

learn HTML, CSS and image editing techniques that will save you time and allow you to

more easily create eff ective websites. You’ll become productive right away with real-world

exercises and simple explanations. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions and lesson

fi les available on the Digital Classroom website at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/webdesign. The

Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team

of instructors and experts who have created many of the offi cial training titles for companies

such as Adobe Systems and Microsoft. Now you can benefi t from the expert instructors and

clear, detailed instructions provided by the American Graphics Institute team

Prerequisites

Before you start the Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom lessons, you should

have a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how

to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders. You

also need to understand how to locate, save, and open fi les, and you should also know how

to use your mouse to access menus and commands. If you are just starting out with using a

computer, you should become familiar with its operation fi rst, using resources such as the

Windows 7 Digital Classroom or Mac OS X Digital Classroom.

We recommend that you install a text editor to use when working with the HTML and CSS

code. The specifi c editor is not important, but you should choose and install a text editor so

that you can easily open and work with the lesson fi les presented in this book. If you aren’t

sure which to use, you can wait until you get to Lesson Three where we discuss working

with code and using text editors. However, if you’re comfortable installing a text editor,

we’ve listed some options below.

Starting up

2

Prerequisites

Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom

Some Mac OS text editors include BBedit and TextWrangler, both of which are available

at http://www.barebones.com. Or you can use TextMate which is available for download

at http://macromates.com. Another Mac OS text editor is Coda which can be found at

http://www.panic.com/coda/.

If you work on a Windows computer you may wish to use E Text Editor which is available at

http://www.e-texteditor.com or Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express which can be found at

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/.

If you already have a visual web design tool like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft

Expression Web installed on your computer, you can use the coding tools integrated with

these software packages instead of installing a dedicated text editor. Although both Adobe

and Microsoft off er free trial versions of these software tools, if you don’t have either one

installed, we recommend skipping them for now and instead using any one of the text

editors listed above while working with this book. By using a text editor, you can focus on

the design and underlying code rather than learning the user interface and functions of a specifi c software package.