What is an HTML Editor and how does it work with creating an Electronic Book?

Hi,

Let me first explain what HTML is, what it is used for and what an
HTML editor is:

HTML is the language with which Internet websites like the one you are
looking at now are created. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup
Language.
Basically HTML is a simple programming language which is necessary for
an Internet browser (like Internet Explorer). Through all the
different HTML codes, a browser will understand how to display the
site correctly on the screen.

An HTML editor is a program which is used the simply the process of
creating a website.
With such an editor, the site creator doesn't have to write all sorts
of codes but can simply write the text of an Internet site like it's a
Word document.

I'll give you an example:

This is a piece of a website in raw HTML form:
“<p>The next step is to modularize the elements and attributes into
convenient collections for use in documents that combine XHTML with
other tag sets. The modules are defined in
<a href="#xhtml-modularization">Modularization of XHTML</a>.
<a href="#xhtml-basic">XHTML Basic</a> is an example of fairly
minimal build of these modules and is targeted at mobile
applications.</p>"

If you would use an HTML editor, you could get the same result by
simply typing:
"The next step is to modularize the elements and attributes into
convenient collections for use in documents that combine XHTML with
other tag sets. The modules are defined in
Modularization of XHTML
XHTML Basic is an example of fairly
minimal build of these modules and is targeted at mobile
applications."
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

The editor would than automatically add all the codes so that a Web
browser would understand it and could show the website correctly.

As for the Electronic Book part of question:
I suspect you mean a book which is readable on the Internet at a
website.
An HTML editor therefore simply is the tool to create this site on
which the text of this book is located.
With the Editor you would only have to type the text of the book
itself and you would not need any knowledge about the HTML language
because you would not need to manually add HTML codes. You could
simply upload this HTML site to an Internet sever and from that moment
on people could read your book on the Internet using an Internet
browser.


For more information about HTML, visit:

A Beginner’s Guide to HTML
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerAll.html

HTML Tutorial for Beginners:
http://www.relisoft.com/Web/html.html

Getting started with HTML:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/

A good freeware HTML editor can be found here:
http://download.com.com/3000-2029-3293038.html?tag=lst-0-4

More information about a popular commercial HTML editor:
http://www.sausagetools.com/professional/overview.html

Hope this answer is to your satisfaction!
paul_b_18-ga

A really excellent free html editor is available at www.evrsoft.com. 
I particularly like this one because it has several difficulty levels,
and a preview feature and is a good way for a beginner to learn.

Hello.

I have a feeling that you may be confusing two different things. Like
was already mentioned, HTML is the format to create online documents
to be viewed with a browser (like Internet Explorer). HTML documents
contain of all different types of objects including text, graphics,
forms, video, sound/music etc etc.

Electronic book is a general term to refer to a document (be at a
regular book or a magazine or some kind of technical documentation) in
electonic (to be viewed on a desktop computer/hand-held
computer/mobile phone (if one supports it) etc  ) form.

One of the most popular e-book file formats is the one developed by
Adobe Systems Inc. (http://www.adobe.com) called PDF. (portable data
format). The software to view the PDF documents is called Adobe
Acrobat Reader and is  available for free download at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html

The main idea of PDF file format is to enable the person creating the
document to combine both text and graphics in order for them to be
delivered in unchanged form to the reader.
To be able to create these documents you need Adobe Acrobat. (not the
reader but the Acrobat full version). You can find the information on
Adobe Acrobat at the  URL that I have included above. Note the
difference between the reader and full Acrobat -- the full version
lets you _create_ PDF files. Also the latest version of Acrobat can
convert your website content (actually what you were looking for) into
the PDF format including all the link information for offline viewing.
It is even possible to install PDF creation software as a virtual
printer: any documents that you print from your favorite software (e.
g. Microsoft Word or any other word processor or image editing
software or _virtually_anything_ that CAN print) will be saved in PDF
format.

I hope this information is helpful.
Good luck with your e-books!

Hi!

To make an ebook you need both an HTML editor and an HTML
compiler(unless of course you take the time to learn HTML code.) The
HTML editor has been explained very well in the answer and comments. 
An HTML compiler is needed for the second part of the process.  Adobe
Acrobat is great to convert HTML to PDF as stated in the comment
above; however,the cost might be prohibitive. It is good to know there
are other options.

To learn about the different features of HTML ebook
compilers(including PDF); to determine which one might be best suited
for your needs;  and to see a list of some of the more popular
compilers and their costs, follow this link:

INTERNET MARKETING:eBook Compilers
http://www.webdesignwisdom.com/marketing/compiler.shtml

Hope this helps!

Pinky-ga

To add to the very well done and informative answer you already
recieved...

To make an electronic book you may wish to simply use MS-Word or
Wordperfect, and the Adobe Acrobat program mentioned above. The Adobe
program will create the PDF E-Book directly from you Word Document.
This way you don't have to worry about learning HTML (though learning
basic HTML is certainly not difficult and there are tons of tutorials
and HOWTO's for learning it on the web).

Also in Word there is a Save As HTML function. This option tends to
make rather messy HTML, and many people find it not acceptable, but I
thought I would mention it anyway.

webadept-ga

Hi!
Actually, HTML is not a programming language, as stated in the answer.
 HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is a page description language,
which means that it is used to describe what a page will look like
when viewed with a web browser.  However, you can embed programming
languages into html documents such as javascript and PHP.  Javascript,
developed by Netscape, has nothing to do with java.  It was originally
named livescript, but the name was changed to javascript at the last
minute as a marketing ploy (that obvously worked!).  Javascript is
responsible for all the dynamic content on a web page, because is it
scripted on your computer, which php is server-side scripting.

Ebooks are not made with HTML.  An ebook is an electronic book format
designed by adobe <http://www.adobe.com/> that can be viewed with
adobe's ebook reader.  If you have the correct software, an HTML page
can be imported to an ebook, that is the only relation.

Hope that helps.

As a whole other approach, I might suggest LaTeX.  Much like HTML,
LaTeX is a document markup language.  However, LaTeX has many more
capabilities - for example, how would you insert something like an
equation in an HTML document?  An often used solution is to produce an
image which is then linked/embedded in the document.  This could get
tedious, and it does not only apply to equations either.

The best PDF documents I have ever seen were those produced by using
LaTeX.  It is wonderful for creating books, generating tables of
contents, etc.  If used properly, it will produce a fantastic PDF with
hyper-links and the works almost effortlessly (after you get by the
initial learning curve).

Others mentioned the high cost of the Adobe software required to take
your HTML or Word files to PDF files.  This is not needed with LaTeX
as everything is FREE!

Assuming you are in Windows, MiKTeX is the package you will want to
look into (it is free) and once installed you will have the ability to
compile your LaTeX documents into various formats, including fantasitc
looking PDF documents.
http://www.miktex.org/

While MiKTeX includes everything you need, it is a little intimidating
because it is all command-line based console exuctables.  This is
easily solved with any of the hundreds of freely available editors out
there.  A personal favorite of mine is WinEdt.
http://www.winedt.com/

With WinEdt you'll have plenty of menus and quick-buttons that
automatically insert the 'code' (tags) you need to do your
type-setting.  Click another button and your document is magically
compiled into a PDF and displayed to you in the Acrobat Reader (this
assumes you have the Acrobat Reader and MiKTeX already installed, both
are free).

The best way to figure out all of the LaTeX (or even HTML) markup
tags, in my opinion, is to look at some examples - and there is no
shortage of either.  But WinEdt will certainly make the process easier
for you.

The downside to WinEdt is that it is shareware.  You may use it in
full, but after a 30 day period expires it begins to randomly shop you
annoying popup reminders that you should register the product  :)

An alternative is TeXnicCenter.  It is the same idea as WinEdt, but is
totally free - it does lack a few features.
http://www.toolscenter.org/products/texniccenter/

I should note that there are many, many, many LaTeX editors out there.
 The two I have mentioned are NOT WYSIWYG editors.  They may feel a
little intimadating at first, but the resulting product is very
professional looking in the end.

What is a WYSIWYG editor?  WYSIWYG stands for "What you see is what
you get".  This type of editor would present the document in something
similar to its final form as you edit it (much like MS Word does), the
editors I mentioned are really glorified text editors that work well
together with the MiKTeX package to help the end user out.  You will
still see 'code' in these editors, but it doesn't take long to get
used to it  :)

You may be wondering why I have been writing "LaTeX" instead of Latex.
 First, the word is pronounced 'lay-tek' and some of the letters are
actually greek letters.  However, due to the LIMITATIONS of HTML (the
format in which you are viewing this comment) I am unable to show you
the correct characters.

So, it isn't clear from your question what you are trying to
accomplish, but I thought I'd throw this comment in to give you a
whole new lead to possibly chase.  If you are doing a 3 page book I
would probably continue looking into HTML, but if the book is going to
be quite lengthy and you need to manage sections/subsections or
chapters, etc. then LaTeX is certainly worth investigating (and you
con do 100% of your type-setting FREE with a resulting professional
looking PDF).

Just an idea that you may want to look into.  There are plenty of
resources available.  If you'd like clarification on this comment,
please do not hesitate to ask.  I should note that Microsoft Word
(expensive) has the ability to create very nice documents as well
(with A LOT of formatting work) when combined with Adobe's Acrobat
suite (expensive).  LaTeX takes no formatting effort and allows the
author to focus on content instead of format.

Sounds like a mouthful, and it is.  There is a learning curve to both
HTML and to LaTeX, but one of the best things I have ever learned in
recent years was how to use LaTeX.  My reports and documents have
never looked better.  (It isn't for everyone though).

The ultimate in type-setting IS LaTeX!