Learn to Text Edit

Most professional web developers use a WYSIWYG text editor for creating web pages because it simplifies the task of formatting text, creating links to pages, selecting pages to edit and an array of other features which will simply your job. However, since these tutorials are geared to teach you how to look under the hood, we will be using a plain old, simple and free text editor.

Most PC's come equipped with NotePad, and it can be used for all the tutorials if you want. There are many FREE text editors available but the one I suggest you get comfortable with is TextPad. Although TextPad is not free, the evaluation copy never expires and therefore gives you plenty of time to evaluate the product. If later on you decide that you can't live without it, then buy it. It is very reasonably priced and in later tutorials I will show you how to use some of the more advanced features like block editing and creating macros to make simple work of repetitive tasks.

Download and install TextPad Now!

After you download and install TextPad, launch the application and take some time to get comfortable with the interface. Learn how to create and save a simple text file, close down the application, launch the application, locate and edit a previously saved text file, etc.

1. Launch TextPad.

2. Select File->New. This will put you into a blank text document. Enter some text to play with.

3. Select File->Save As. By default, TextPad will save this text document into your Documents folder - which is fine for now. Later we will want to navigate to our local web site folder to save the text document. If you can't remember where your local web site folder is, go back and re-read Tutorial #1.

4. Shut down (close) the TextPad editor.

5. Startup the TextPad editor and select File->Open. Locate your saved document and double click the file name to load it into TextPad. Make some more changes and save the file again.

6. Repeat the previous steps until you are comfortable starting the application, creating a new document, adding text into a new document, saving the document, shutting down the TextPad application, re-editing an existing text document, etc.

Practice makes perfect and it is essential you spend some time mastering your text editor. Later, when we start creating the code for a web page, you do not want to get distracted struggling with how to do simple text editing operations.

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