Web Publishing
Before the advent of the World Wide Web, the means to share opinions and ideas with
others easily and inexpensively was limited to classroom, work, or social environments.
Generating an advertisement or publication required a lot of expense. Today, businesses
and individuals can convey information to millions of people by using Web pages.
Web publishing is the process of developing, maintaining, and posting Web pages. With
the proper hardware and software, Web publishing is fairly easy to accomplish. For
example, clip galleries offer a variety of images, videos and sounds.1 A sound card
allows users to incorporate sounds into Web pages. With a microphone, a Web page can
include voice. A digital camera provides a means to capture digital photographs. A
scanner can convert existing photographs and other graphics into a digital format. A
video capture card and a video camera can incorporate videos into Web pages. A video
digitizer can capture still images from a video (Thrall and Winters 46-68).
HTML (hypertext markup language) is a set of special codes used to format a file for use
as a Web page. These codes, called tags, specify how the text and other elements on the
Web page display in a Web browser and where the links on the page lead. A Web
browser translates the document with the HTML tags into a functional Web page.
There are several new web page formats that can be used, in addition to HTML, when
publishing web pages. They include CSS, XHTML, and DHTML. Brief explanations
for each follow:
Creating web pages as cascading style sheets (CSS) allows for, “more sophisticated page
design than web developers have been used to,….. (and to) simplify the process of
making web pages accessible to as many readers as possible, regardless of the device
they use to read our pages” (Allsopp). XHTML2 modularizes the web page code
according to specified Net standards so that the page formatting is retained no matter
what platform it is viewed on, once the page has been published (Webopedia: XHTML).
“Dynamic HTML refers to new HTML extensions that will enable a Web page to react to
user input without sending requests to the Web server. Microsoft and Netscape have
submitted competing Dynamic HTML proposals to W3C, which is producing the final
specification” (Webopedia: dynamic HTML).
1
Many current software packages include a clip gallery. Clip galleries also are
available on the Web or may be purchased on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM (Zack, 9-24).
2
XHTML stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (Webopedia:
XHTML).
Developing, or authoring, a Web page does not require the expertise of a computer
programmer. Many word processing and other application software packages include
Web page authoring features that assist in the development of basic Web pages.
Microsoft Office 2000 products, for example, provide easy to use tools that enable users
to create Web pages and incorporate items such as bullets, frames, backgrounds, lines,
database tables, worksheets, and graphics into the Web pages (Shelley Cashman series ®
Microsoft Word 2000 Project 2). Web page authoring software packages enable the
development of more sophisticated Web pages that might include video, sound,
animation, and other special effects. Both new and experienced users can create
fascinating Web sites with Web page authoring software.
Conclusion
In today’s world a person can distribute a message, product or service, to any other
person who might be interested, around the world. This can be accomplished quickly and
easily by publishing a web page on the Internet. Web pages can be much cheaper to
produce than printed publications, can reach a far wider audience, and can incorporate a
variety of text, images, video, and sound objects. Another important advantage of web
publishing is that pages can be changed and updated more frequently than printed
materials. Also, by using web page authoring software, the average person can generally
create a web page without a thorough understanding of the programming code. If you
have a message that you would like to share with a global audience, web publishing just
might be the answer for you.
Works Cited
Thrall, Peter D., and Amy P. Winters. Computer Concepts for the New Millennium.
Boston. International Press, 2001.
Zack, Joseph R. “An Introduction to Clip Galleries and Digital Files.” Computers for
Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond Sep. 2001: 9-24.
Shelley Cashman Series ® Microsoft Word 2000 Project 2. Course Technology. 2000:
WD 2.5.
Allsopp, John. “Cascading Style Sheets Reference: Everything You Wanted to Know
About Style.” The House of Style.
http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/index.html (October 13,
2000).
“XHTML.” Webopedia: Online Computer Dictionary for Internet Terms and Technical
Support. http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/X/XHTML.html (October 13, 2000).
“dynamic HTML.” Webopedia: Online Computer Dictionary for Internet Terms and
Technical Support. http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/d/dynamic_HTML.html
(October 13, 2000).