Some years ago you would have needed to know how to code HTML. That is no longer the case. There are many software products available that make it easy to produce a web site. Having some knowledge of HTML is an advantage but by no means a necessity.

There is open source software available that is every bit as powerful as the paid for variety. Open source software is created by a community of programmers around the world that work together to produce useful software. Just to highlight how good much of this open source software is; Have you heard of Apache Server Software? Apache is the preferred software used on most servers today. This is open source software, free.

This free software is called NVU (Pronounced N-View) Just search Google for NVU and choose which download you need. Linux, Windows, or Mac.

Using NVU

When you open NVU it looks like any word processor program. It works much the same too. There is, though, one major difference and that is how you set it out so that you control where things will be placed.

Unlike a word processor, you need to be able to work with images as well as text. You need to have control in placing each component where you want to. When you first start this, it will seem difficult. The truth is that everything is difficult until you know how. The purpose of this article is to help you master being able to place components just where you want.

Even though the screen looks much the same as a word processor, and many of the tools have the same or similar functions. There are differences. The main one is how to place objects where you want them to appear.

So now let's concentrate on how to place things where you want them. The key to this is tables. If you want to place text next to an image you need to create a table with 2 columns. One to contain your image and the other for the text.

You can create tables inside of tables. You can change the background color of any table or column. You can set the width of your table in pixels or percent. Percent allows you to create a table inside another table to a set size depending on the size of the table it is created into.

Tables are the building blocks of the HTML site. They allow you to control how your page will look. Tables can be made invisible so everything looks seamless. You can create an invisible table by making your border thickness 0 pixels.

Once you understand how tables work in a HTML program the rest will fall into place as you experiment with it.