Alright, enough theory. Let us actually write some HTML and see it come to life in a browser. I promise you, the first time you open an HTML file you created yourself, it feels like magic.
The best part? You already have everything you need. There is no software to install and no complicated setup. Just two tools you already use every day.
What You Need
You need exactly two things to write HTML:
- A text editor — Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on Mac, or any code editor like VS Code, Sublime Text, or Atom. If you do not have a code editor yet, Notepad works perfectly fine for now.
- A web browser — Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari. Whatever you are reading this on right now.
That is it. No compilers, no runtimes, no dependencies, no package managers. Just a text editor and a browser.
Write Your First HTML Page
Follow these steps. They will only take two minutes:
- Open your text editor
- Type the following code exactly as you see it
- Save the file as
index.html— the.htmlextension is crucial - Double-click the file to open it in your browser
<h1>My First Webpage</h1>
<p>I just created this page myself. It is live in my browser right now!</p>
<p>HTML is easier than I thought.</p>When you double-click that .html file, your browser opens it and renders it instantly. No web server, no uploads, no hosting. Just you and your HTML.
A Note on File Names
Save your file with the .html extension — not .txt, not .doc, not .html.txt. If you use Notepad, make sure to select "All Files" in the save dialog and type index.html as the file name.
You can name your HTML file anything, but index.html is the traditional name for the main page of a website. When a server looks for the default page, it looks for index.html first.