HTML Introduction
In this chapter, you are introduced to the concepts of linear media and hypermedia. You learn about HTML and the basics of document structure.

Linear Media
Linear media describes media with a defined beginning and a linear progression to the end. Forms of linear media such as film, audio and videotape, as well as most books are organized with this expectation. The World Wide Web, however, is organized differently.

Hypermedia
Hypermedia is about choice. Users simply select what interests them. A good example is an audio CD where you can choose song 5 and listen to it almost instantly. Compare this with an audiotape where you would have to scan through from your current location on the tape to the beginning of the song.

When this concept is applied to text you get hypertext, where by {Clicking} on a link or hotspot (hyperlink) you are transported to a new location within the same page or to a new page altogether.When you interlink a large number of pages of text on different computers all over the world, you get a spider web-like system of links and pages. This is known as the World Wide Web - a system whereby pages stored on many different web servers, connected to the Internet, are linked together.

The system is useful because all of the pages are created in the same format. This format or "language" is called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), a subset of an international standard for electronic document exchanged called SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). This course introduces you to the format of an HTML page. You learn about the components that make up HTML, and how to use Dreamweaver to create pages to publish on the World Wide Web.