Also note,
is a line break tag, like adding a return to the page.
Other HTML editing tools:
Notetab, the notepad replacement.
http://www.notetab.com It is a basic text editor with some extra html features, and also has a tabbed multiple document thing.
There are some WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) editors out there. Frontpage is one made by microsoft and comes with MS Office. It adds way too much code for things that are very easy to do. Word XP adds a ridiculous amount of code to a page, and I do not recommend anyone use it to make webpages.
Dreamweaver is the most popular among designers. It is more of an advanced editor. I don't have much experience with Dreamweaver, but I am pretty sure it doesn't add a bunch of gay unnecessary code.
After you get the basics of html down, another important skill is tables. Tables are used for aligning things in webpages, ot just adding a look.
You start the table with the table tag, use a table row tag, then a table data tag, and end it all.
Example:
<table>
<tr>
<td>content here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Table starts the table.
tr is a table row. All td's inside a table row tag are on one row. So, if you want to have several cells on top of each other, you have to have several table rows with table data's inside them.
td is a table data tag. All the content in a table needs to go inside one of these, or it will throw off everything. These always go inside a table row.
Then there are properties to those tags.
here is how it works:
<table width=100% height=200 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=4 border=1 bordercolor=ffffff bgcolor=000000>
<tr>
<td bgcolor=555555 bordercolor=ff00ff align="center" valign="top" width=100%>some stuff
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Width can be in either percent or pixels. if it is in pixels, you only need to use the number, but percent must have the % after it.
Height isn't necessary, but works the same way as width, except it is verticle.
Cellpadding is the amount of space between the edge of the cell (td) and the text or images inside it.
Cellspacing is the amount of space between each cell (td).
Border is the width in pixels of the border. 1 is the most popular, but depending on your design others can look good.
Bordercolor is the color of the border. As always, you can use either hexcodes or color names. Hex codes are best because you can get an exact color, but it can be hard to get right. Color names like "orange" or "silver" will work, but I am pretty sure "Macaroni" won't. To learn avbout hex codes, check the links at the end of this post.
Bgcolor is the background color of the whole table. The colors work the same as everything in html just like the bordercolor.
Align can align everything in a td. Your options are "left", "center", or "right."
Valign aligns things in the td vertically. Your options are "top", "middle", and "bottom."
Hexcodes for colors http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/color_codes/ *note - it is not necessary to include the # in front of colors. color=#ffffff would work the same as color=ffffff.
Notetab http://www.notetab.com HTML Goodies (great site for learning html
http://www.htmlgoodies.com Webmonkey (great site for html, web languages, general internet stuff)
http://www.webmonkey.com HTML Goodies Tables http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/tbl.html