Opening a new blank Page

From the File menu choose New. A new blank page opens

Opening a page you've made previously
From the File menu choose Open. Find the folder where your web pages are, select the page you want and then click the Open button

Saving your page

If you are saving for the first time - from the File menu choose Save as... Type a name for your file in the File name box and click the Save button

If you are re-saving a page that you have saved previously, just choose Save from the File menu or press Ctrl +S

Save your pages often in case your computer crashes. You don't want to have to redo all your hard work!

Giving your page a title

Even though you give your page a name when you save it, you still should give it a title. This title will appear in the browser window of anyone viewing your page on the web and it's what will be used if someone bookmarks your page.

From the Modify menu choose Page Properties
In the Page Properties box type a title for your page in the title box

Changing the colour of your page's background

You can make your background luminous purple or yucky lime green if you want, just remember people need to be able to read your pages without wearing sun glasses!

From the Modify menu choose Page Properties
In the Page Properties box click and hold the background colour box. A box full of colours appears and your cursor changes to a dropper, drag your dropper over the colours until you find one you like, Click OK

Adding and changing text

Try typing some text onto your page. You may want to move this text to the centre, or you may want to make it bigger or a different colour. The easiest way to do all these things and more is with the Properties Inspector

The Properties Inspector is a rectangular box or palette that lets you change the properties of whatever your cursor has selected. This could be a table, an image, a form, or of course, text.

To display the Properties Inspector

From the Window menu select Properties

To modify your text

First select the text by clicking and dragging over it - your text will be highlighted. Then...

• to make the text bold - press the B button
• to change its position - press one of the align buttons - the ones with the little lines across them
• to change its colour - click the colour box at the top of the inspector and drag the dropper to select a new colour
• to change your text's size - click the drop down arrow beside the size box and choose a new size
• to change the style (or font) of your text - click the down arrow next to the box with different font names in and select a new one.

Paragraphs and new lines

If you want to start typing on a new line, press the shift and enter key together, this moves your cursor to the next line down.
Starting a new paragaph not only moves your cursor down a line but also adds in one blank line. In fact every time you press the enter key your text moves down a line on the page - This is useful for when you need to space your text out.

Previewing your page in a browser

Want to see how your page would actually look if it was being viewed on the web? Then preview it in your browser.
To do this from the File menu choose Preview in Browser and then select your browser.

What looks good in one browser...

... may not look good in another
A browser is the programme on your computer that lets you see web pages. The most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. However web pages sometimes look different in these different browsers, so it's a good idea to preview it in both if you can.

Recap of Work Sheet 3

• We learnt how to open new and existing pages and how to save pages
• We discovered how to give our pages a title and change colours on a page using Page Properties
• We added text to our page and used the Properties Inspector to change its size, colour, style and position
• We learnt that sites look different in different browsers and found out how to preview our pages in a browser.