Posted by Andy Dingley on 11/30/99 11:45

dave black wrote:
> I'm just learning HTML but don't yet have any webspace.
>
> What I'd like to know is: if I create a web page in Word, is there any
> way I can see what it looks like on my computer's browser (Microsoft
> Internet Explorer) without actually publishing it on the Web?

Print it out, shred it, scan the remains and look at that.

Word is an _awful_ web editor. It's bad at making pages and you
certainly won't learn anything by using it. Almost anything (even
Frontplague!) would be better.

Instead, use a simple text editor if you want to learn HTML.
Use Dreamweaver if you're rich and don't want to learn anything.
If you want something easy (DW ish) but cheap, then there are plenty of
downloadables every bit as good as DW (for almost all users).



As to seeing your pages locally, then the best way is to get a web
server. If you have broadband, then just use one out on the web - it's
as quick as a local machine.

If you don't have this, then set one up on a spare redundant PC. Good
time to learn Apache / Ubuntu install and config 8-)

If all that's too scary, then as a bare minimum you can simply use the
pages as files on your local disk.

the file
c:\work\my_web_stuff\index.htm

works fine as
file:///c:/work/my_web_stuff/index.htm
in your browser

Be warned though, this isn't _exactly_ the same as using a web server.
There are subtle issues about "HTTP headers" you don't care about yet,
but there are bigger risks if you use an "easy to use" web editor (we
see many people fall down the same hole, then ask here what went
wrong).

An image tag on the page works fine as
<img src="photos/my_cat.jpg" >

however many editors might create this as
<img src="c:\work\my_web_stuff\photos\my_cat.jpg" >
assuming it's a local file and so that's what you want. When you
finally upload this to a real server, then it's not a valid URL -- your
local C:\ drive means nothing to the web server.

You _can_ develop big websites on local filesystems. But if you're
beginning, then you're likely to get confused by the URL / path issues
in a way that doesn't happen when you use a real web server (or at
least it's instant and obvious what went wrong).

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