Video Paper Builder - Text Basics

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IMPORTANT NOTICE - There are several major issues with VideoPaper Builder. View our Known Issues page for descriptions of the issues and work-arounds.

The Basics

Text content may be copied and pasted or typed directly into VPB's text editor. Authors may also wish to import files. All text files imported into VideoPaper Builder must be in HTML format and saved as "filename.html" or "filename .htm."

What is HTML?

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the language of the World Wide Web. See the World Wide Web Consortium's webpage for more information. To quote the W3C, "HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors -- you type it in from scratch -- to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags such as <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links, etc. Here is a 10-minute guide for newcomers to HTML." (taken from www.w3.org/MarkUp/)

Note regarding using HTML: if you have no HTML experience, our tutorial will help to get you started. However, you may want to invest in a basic book on HTML. We recommend HTML for the World Wide Web, by E. Castro, published by PeachPit Press.

HTML documents can be written in any text editor (SimpleText or MSWord, for example); remember to save your files with the extention .html or .htm. There are also many HTML editors available, including some basic freeware (see below for links and information). Your documents can also be created using "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editors, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, a very popular program.

Writing an HTML Document

The Head and Foot Sections of the Document:

All HTML documents need a section to tell a browser that they are, indeed, an HTML document. Some get pretty fancy, but by inserting the following, you will create an empty html file into which you can add your text content:

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Last Update: 11/14/2005 Maintainer: VPB Webmaster (webmaster@concord.org)