Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML & XHTML in 21 Days [With CDROM]

I've taught HTML and e-commerce at the university level for about a decade now. This book is the best I have found. I use it as my personal reference. I require it for my classes. It covers the essentials. It gives clear examples. It is organized in a logical order that works. It can be used by someone who has never tried to build a web page, and also has enough 'meat' so that those who have been building pages for years can find useful information and tips throughout. I just wish I could find books on some of my other subjects that are as well written and organized as this.

I purchased this book to use in a class I was taking. I had no prior knowledge of HTML, but this book does an excellent job of introducing the reader to designing web pages. I found the chapters very easy to follow and the exercises were kind of fun as you got to practice what you just read about. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to learn HTML.

Very well written, even if you know nothing about HTML (like me). If you want to know the nuts & bolts of writing HTML code by hand, this book is exactly what you're looking for. Don't feel bad if you take a little more than 21 days, there's a lot of information in there! However, if you're more interested in learning the intricacies of an HTML editor, such as Frontpage or Hotdog, this book would probably be overkill.

If you want to learn HTML and XHTML this is the book to read. Some subjects are deeper covered than some others but this is the best guide for newbies and a very good reference for the advanced.

I am a professional software developer. I've dabbled in HTML as part of my job, but in late 2001 decided to finally take the time to learn the latest HTML standards right. So I set out to find the best and most comprehensive HTML book there was. I considered the five most available and highly-rated ones: Laura Lemay's Teach Yourself (Professional Edition), The HTML Bible, the Wrox HTML book, Elizabeth's Visual QuickStart Guide, and Molly Holzschlag's Special Edition.None of them are perfect, but Lemay's book seemed to be the best of the bunch - at the time (more on that later). I worked through it the hard way - from cover to cover. Now I can share with you my observations:PROS:1) Comprehensive coverage of almost all the important topics, from site planning, the HTML language itself, sound/video to design tips, site marketing and server admin. Its unrivaled breadth gives the novice a good survey of the entire field.2) The comprehensiveness extends to the well-written appendices - HTML, CSS, Javascript, charset, color and MIME charts make this book a great all-in-one reference long after you've finished the lessons.3) Commitment to XHTML1.0 means you will learn to do things the right way4) The three meaty chapters on web server set-up and admin set this book apart, as are the chapters on site marketing and testing.5) As for the basics, good coverage of text formatting and wrapping6) Clean, readable writing and layoutCONS:1) The only major shortfall - insubstantial CSS coverage. The future of page design deserves more than one rather generic chapter. Particularly annoying is Lemay's practice in early chapters of introducing classic formatting tags/attributes only to tell you it's deprecated in HTML 4.0. A comprehensive chart of old-vs-new practices at the end of the CSS chapter would have been helpful, as are re-implementations of all previous examples in standard-compliant HTML (especially for tables).2) There should have been a few color insert-pages - to help explain the Using Colors section, at least! (I am thinking about the Color Wheel model in the old Teach Yourself Web Design book)3) Laura Lemay is not a professional designer, and it shows. Look at any HTML book and you can tell whether the author is a Developer, a Tech Writer or a Designer. Lemay writes well and gives some good general design advices, but her example pages are uninspiring. Typography, an issue dear to designers and problematic in the web world, receives scant attention. To learn design, go to chapter 6, 7, 8, 12 of Robin William's "The Non-Designer's Web Book" for sharp and practical advices.4) Skimpy on: WYSIWYG tools, Java, streaming, Flash, META tags, DNS and domain registration; no mention of the AOL browser5) Needs better explanation of the DHTML concepts, especially diagrams that show how HTML, CSS and Javascript work together6) Examples not consistently standard-compliant, Ch.20 errorneously states that Javascript array index starts with 1, and other minor editorial