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Summary: Really is a Visual Quickstart Guide
Review: This HTML guide is one of the best programming books I have been so fortunate to purchase. Within a day, I was able to write simple HTML to create my own pages. As a web-consultant, I keep this book in my briefcase as I often use the book as a resource during prototyping so that I can develop effective web pages for my clients.So many programming books have are difficult to read or are poorly written. Many times the author doesn't pay very close attention to the examples in the text so when one attempts to follow the examples the code is simply wrong. This is NOT the case with this book. The examples are easy to follow and you walk through each example step by step. The book is an excellent primer for those new to programming and HTML. The book provides many code samples whether it's developing forms, or writing basic pages or even learning how to create tables. One of my favorite features of the book is that Appendix D lists all of the tags with cross-references to the full code examples in the book! This is a valuable resource in and of itself. If you're new to programming and the web and you want to take the first step and learn HTML, this book is a great resource.
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Summary: Excellent Guide for True Beginners
Review: I picked up a copy of this book knowing nothing about HTML, and after spending a few days reading the material within now feel comfortable coding my own webpages start to finish without using a cumbersome app such as HomePage that will add unneeded coding (or worse - in MS Word). The layout of the book is great, and steps through in a truly logical progression - from page layout and basic text to formatting to images to links, and on to more current topics such as cascading style sheets. It even touches on Javascript, Perl scripts and Java applets. No detail on these really, but enough to whet my appettite to find out more. If there is a downside, the lack of full-color in the examples lessens their impact in places. Instead of seeing the contrasting colors, you see various shades of red in the examples. Still, it is not too difficult to see what is happening, and on the whole the examples are very helpful and illustrative of the text. Castro even includes links to her webpages where you can see the examples in action.
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Summary: above and beyond
Review: great. it has all html tags, and it goes further to teach you CSS and basic basic javascript. has several reference apendices, including a hex colors and special symbols. very good reference, and it teaches html quite well.
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Summary: get this book....
Review: I bought this book hoping that it would provide the insight that online tutorials were lacking in. It did that and much more. Castro's examples are great and insightful and answered all of the frustrating questions I was having. With this book I realized that there is no need to buy a huge compendium on HTML. HTML really is a simple language. But there are some parts of it, like nesting tables, that need serious explanation. You'll get it here. Her coverage of Cascading Style Sheets is enough to get you started using them. To be honest, I'm not sure if CSS's need much more explanation. If you're just learning HTML, all you need is the persistent desire to learn, the desire to view the source code of sites that you like, and this book... All of the HTML and CSS knowledge that I have was gleamed from the above methods in a span of 4 months....P>And once you're done learning from this book, it makes for the best reference tool. You will access it again and again.
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Summary: Glad I chose this book....
Review: I've bought alot of books covering many different languages\ technologies that use "quick,easy,fast,simple," or the like to describe the approach used in their books. Very few live up to their claims. Elizabeth Castro has done a very good job presenting the material in an effective and entertaining manner. The only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars was her continual use of tags that weren't explained until later in the book. That being the only complaint, I also bought her XML book.
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Summary: Great HTML Tutorial for Beginners
Review: I've been doing some HTML coding over the past five years and recently delved into learning HTML 4.01, XHTML, CSS, and some of the other newer technologies. After reading some more technical books, I looked at this one to see why it's so popular. It's easy to see why. All the basics of HTML and related technologies such as graphics, multimedia, and CSS are explained very simply with tons of examples HTML code and screenshots of browsers. Now for the downside of the book: it's fairly short but covers a lot of topics. This means there is very little depth to the discussion, and lots of details are left out. If you're just getting started with HTML, that's probably appropriate. But after you digest a good chunk of this book, you'll want to get a meatier HTML or web design book and go back and fill in the missing pieces. One more nit about this book: in my years of dealing with HTML, I've too often run across an HTML page that worked great in some browsers, but failed miserably on another. These failures included crashing the browser and printing thousands of pages to the printer! In every case, simply validating the HTML with the W3C validator would have picked up the problem right away. This book does mention using the validator, but only after you've noticed a problem. Take my advice: after getting each HTML page to look good in one browser, validate it! You'll save yourself and others lots of trouble.
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Summary: This one is the best beginner's HTML guide.
Review: I've never written a review before, but after just having recommended this E. Castro book to another inquirer (and sending an Amazon link to buy it) I thought I'd say a word here. This is the BEST HTML book out there. It has code pages / with screen shots. You see what you are to do and HOW TO DO IT. All it takes is one missplaced character and the form's select menu won't work. When you can see the code you can make it work and LEARN. Sorry for the capitals, but this book deserves them. Elizabeth Castro is a no-nonsense computer tutorial writer who can cut through to the quick. If you were buying one book, or your first book, this is the one to get. And I know.
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Summary: Stricty a Dangerous Gateway Drug.
Review: Many cases revealed highly dangerous affects of reading this book due to it's extremely easy to understand layout and working examples. The amount of HTML addiction patients have increased at dangerously high amounts. This causes danger to all uneducated web developers out there who will get there butts kicked from the new bread of web developers who started with this book and began to eat all other books. I read this book in about 3 weeks (This was my first web development book). It was so easy that I immediately started doing things that everyone says is a pain to do (Uh mm tables). Yeah that was a bunch of hype considering the fact that this book made the table techniques feel like a walk in the park. One thing though this is only a gateway book.
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Summary: Perfect for Self Starting
Review: This is a great book! I started out knowing very little about HTML & now I'm writing like a pro. Granted HTML is not Java but I couldn't reccomend a better book for the novice to programming of any kind. Mrs. Castro talks you through the recent developments in HTML, explaining everything w/o going over one's head. No TMI here. Her style & examples make the book fun to read and use. Mine is now so dog eared & flagged w/stickies it looks like I've been programming in HTML for years as opposed to a few months. Great MAC & PC examples. No favoritism for one platform or another (but I think she likes macs). I highly recommend this book to the beginner.
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Summary: This is the best book for HTML - the basics
Review: I was looking for a textbook for my HTML class that would give the students a good step-by-step approach to programming HTML. This was the best. This book walks you through programming different HTML tasks and shows you how to do it. Very direct. This is not slanted towards MacinTrash since HTML is used on both platforms. It does warn you what features in HTML will only work in Netscape or IE 5.0 and greater. It also provides you with a color chart and an index. Buy this book. You may want another one to help you, but this one will be your resource you depend on.
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