Understanding Web Pages

Before we take a look at how Calc can be used to create simple HTML documents, a brief explanation of how Web pages and Web sites work is in order. Even the simplest Web site you find on the World Wide Web (WWW) consists of multiple HTML documents that are linked by a series of hyperlinks (more about hyperlinks in the section “Working with Hyperlinks”).

Web sites provide a home page that serves as the index for the rest of the Web site. All the navigation of the site is then handled by clicking on a particular link that takes you to another page on the site. In most Web page construction software, the first page created is actually titled “index.” All the pages that make up the Web site are saved in the HTML format.

The odd thing about Web pages is that all objects on a Web page such as graphics, backgrounds, or other design elements are actually separate files, even though the Web page appears to you in a Web browser. Before easy-to-use Web page creation software was available, building a Web page meant that each page would be created in a text editor using HTML codes. If the creator wanted to show a picture on a page, an HTML code would be placed on the page that referenced a graphic file. When the page was viewed using a Web browser, the HTML code would be interpreted by the Web browser and the graphic would appear on the page.

Figure 13.7 shows the HTML code contained in Sun Microsystems' home page. Contrast this with Figure 13.8, which shows Sun Microsystems' actual home page as viewed with the StarOffice Web browser.

One other point about Web pages in general: Web pages are located on the WWW using URL (Uniform Resource Locator) addresses. A URL is a friendly name that is linked to the actual IP (Internet Protocol) address of the site on the Web. The URL itself is derived from the actual domain name that has been assigned to a company. For example, Sun Microsystems has the domain name sun.com, and its URL is www.sun.com.