Guides to Writing Style for HTML Documents

Please don't add responses here about the HTML language itself, learning HTML, editors, and converters. There are also other pages on WWW, Servers, Browsers, Images, and more. Please try to find the appropriate page to post to first.

HTML Style Sheets let authors specify preferences for aspects of presentation; they are not about writing style but presentation style.

This page is available for adoption. It is the most popular page on this site, but it badly needs someone to feed and care for it - something I don't have time for these days. Please volunteer. There is a page (recently started) on this reorganization effort.

• Composing Good HTML by James "Eric" Tilton (Willamette U)

• Style Guide for Online Hypertext by Tim Berners-Lee (W3)

• NCSA HTML Style Sheet

• Style Guide for Online Hypertext by Alan Richmond (NASA GSFC)

• Elements of HTML Style by Jonathan Cohen

• Gareth Rees' style guide

• Web Authoring Style Guide - doesn't seem to work.

• The HTML Manual of Style (just the preface and TOC) by Larry Aronson.

• The Ten Commandments of HTML FAQ
• Bad Style Page - a collection of DONTs for HTML.

• The HyperTerrorist Checklist of WWWeb Design Errors
• Top 10 Things NOT to do on a Web Page
• From Grass Roots to Corporate Image - The Maturation of the Web by Christine A. Quinn

• Style Guide for NRAO Home Pages

• A Basic HTML Style Guide for HEASARC at GSFC.

• Style Guides for WebStars at GSFC.

• The AstroWeb Consortium has a standard HTML Interchange Format

• Design Considerations

• Why the web sucks, II by C J Silverio.

• Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Home Page & Top Ten Ways To Tell If You Have A Sucky Home Page by Jeffrey M. Glover

• Why is the Web So Boring? A Call for Better Interactive Design by Stovin Hayter

• Overview of hypertext design theory is an excellent summary of the design issues addressed by many of the style guides.

• An HTML 2.0 Pattern Language

• A Field Guide to Home Pages by D.C. Denison

• Tom's Tips for Web Designers is about graphic images, such as backgrounds and buttons.

• Tutorial on Graphics Techniques at the Spider's Web.
• Some whys and caveats of HTML

• Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media's (C/AIM) WWW Style Manual by Patrick J. Lynch

• HTML Design Guide includes information on HTML, HTML+, HTML 3, and Netscape Extensions.

• Thoughts on Web style by jorn, also a few references

• What is good hypertext writing? by Jutta Degener

• Driving a Newspaper On the Data Highway by Melinda McAdams

• Create Your Audience: The pros and cons of Web writing by Rob Jellinghaus

• Why I Like the Web by Kristen Ankiewicz gives an artist's perspective - including HTML style.

• An article by Jim Hurley on meaningful Anchor Text is here

• The TuLiP Project is an online, hypertext project dealing with many facets of Web design. It's more than a style guide or checklist of do's and don'ts for creating Web pages. We delve into the concepts underlying the Web and show how they can be used to design effective Web sites.

• Pointers on how to create business web pages that work by J&E Copywriting

• Constructing Your Web Site

Guides for Providers

• Etiquette for information providers (W3)

• Webbiquette by bjelli@cosy.sbg.ac.at

• What every information provider should know by Meng Weng Wong

• Random Tips and Hints on Constructing WWW Pages

• Tips for Writers and Designers by David Siegel. Also see Severe Tire Damage on the Information Superhighway
• Evolving Standards For WWW Legal Document Presentation

• Issues for Design of Mosaic Documents by Laurie B. Crum

• Challenges for Web Information Providers has a section on Presenting Information: Formats, Usability, And Design

• Building Subject Guides to Internet Resources -- Home Document and The 12 Step Program for Internet Guide Building by Louis Rosenfeld

• Best of Web 94 is a list of well designed or interesting web sites chosen by the web itself.

• This is the Worst of the Web - new entries daily.

• Useless WWW Pages and the Useless WWW Page Hall of Fame

• World-Wide Web Guidelines - a list of URLs for codes of practices and guidelines for establishment and continuing operation of Web sites. Most of the guidelines featured at this site are designed for UK higher education academic sites, but the information is still applicable to a general audience. The list is collated by Jane Kirk of Nottingham-Trent University.

• Bob Allison's Web Master's page

• Tips for Web Spinners by Bob Allison - includes some on style.

• A Guide to Publishing on the WWW

• Serving Information via the World Wide Web: Hints

• UCLA Web Style Guidelines

• Art and the Zen of Web Sites

• The Virtues of World-Wide Web Inanity, or, What's right about the Web as it is by Pope Clifton

• Updating your Web Page in Real-Time by Jim Hurley

• HTML - Grundlagen von Hubert Partl. It's in German.

• Enabling Extremely Rapid Navigation in Your Web or Document - or - Every Web Site Needs a Detailed Table of Contents , by Michael Hoffman, is packed with essential principles of information design that apply to hardcopy, help, online documentation, and the web.

• Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design by Nathan Shedroff

• The Theory Designers Need: some directions for grounding WWWeb design in cognitive science by Jorn Barger

• Sun' Guide to Web Style by Rick Levine at Sun

• Good and Sensible Design is Crucial to the Success of the Web! - a panel at WWW5.

Other Lists of Style Guides

• Yahoo's page on Design and Layout
• Virtual Library HTML Style page
• Resources on Bad Web Pages
• Related Material by Jutta Degener
• TUAREG CAMP Kitchen - reviews several such guides.
• Web Authoring -- Page Design by Nancy L. Stegall

Add responses below about writing style guides, when to divide up documents into multiple parts, etc. Please don't add responses here about the HTML language itself, learning HTML, editors, and converters. There are also other pages on WWW, Servers, Browsers, Images, and more. Please try to find the appropriate page to post to first.

142. Web World Conference (Richard Ferrara)

143. SEI's not so Exemplary WWW Sites (Paul Holbrook)

144. More Information on Hypertext Theory (David Carmean)

145. Here is a great reference--Bob Allison's Webmaster Page (@198.76.170.19)

1. Kill the sexist 'web master' moniker! (Veganza Lorraine)

1. Response to paranoid feminist (Dick)

...

2. Anyone can master a discipline (Jeanine R)

3. Boo Boo Boo (Sarah)

4. Anyone ever hear of "postmaster"??? (Greg Sherwin)

5. Lucky, lucky (Bob.b)

6. Trivia, Tar and Feathers (barbara_parcells@hp-sandiego-om2.om.hp.com)

7. You Are Incorrect

146. Does anyone know how to make a guestbook? (Mikael Eriksson) (Moved)

147. Tom Karlo's Tips For Web Designers (J. Renaud)

148. Yesss, this is the way to multimedia-world (Robert Eerhart)

149. Learn to make a great, well developed Web Site (Michael P. Shea)

150. Speaking of access to information... (Elizabeth Rose)

151. BANNER and LINK support (Ken Fricklas)

152. wowzy woo woo!!! (Robert Medley Jr.)

153. Sun's Guide to Web Style (Ken Sall)

154. Difference between browsers: what can I use? (dtrudget@aps.faseb.org)

155. Form action: save to local disk possible ? (Dorme Karl)

156. How do you center images for AOL's browser?? (Ken H. Burres III) (Moved)

158. best guide (Jan W. Veenman)

159. Guestbook scripts and more (bigchief@iop.com)

161. How do I make an Questionaire on my web page? (Russell Ostrander)

2. Better still - do it without the CGI or PERL stuff (Ting Wei Lee)

3. This is how. (Tank)

1. How about for macs? (shpurohit@vaxsar.vassar.edu)

162. How do I go up a directory in relative links...? (Jonathan Morgan) (Moved)

163. Putting an image file on the www??? (Sara Coleman)

1. Here's how to put a image on the web

164. My "border=0" buttons still have a border (kind of) (Mike Blasenstein)

1. Try taking out "border" tag altogether. (Julie)

165. How do you automatically insert the body of a text file into a predefined HTML document? (John Collins)

1. server-side includes (Tom McClure)

2. javascript won't do it (Tom McClure)

166. META tag - more information? (Rick Morlang)

167. DBasics htmlZine (Craig Horton)

168. How do you send a form via email (Gary A McConnell)

1. Forms to E-mail example (tenor@xnet.com)

2. Forms via e-mail without CGI (Nancy L. Stegall)

169. Can I download GIF89 for ADOBE PHOTOSHOP? SO I CAN DO A TRANSPARENCY (Danny Glover)

170. frame margins (Jef Maxwell)

1. Include comman in <FRAME> Tag ()

172. pudiera alguien explicar esto en espanol (richie bober)

173. Todo lo que quieras saber de astrologia en espanol (Richie Bover)

174. Easy ways to retrieve/import data from an e-mailed form??? (Brian)

175. I need to find a complet list of html codes. (daniel preston) (Moved)

176. How??? (panchito@ix.netcom.com)

177. How do you write post/chat type pages (panchito@ix.netcom.com)

1. How to... (Karen Neoh)

178. I want the tag in the head for new browser... (chris@new-media.se)

179. How do I target a blank page? (sjp@ionline.net)

180. Problem with Frames - - PLEASE HELP! (pjf116@email.psu.edu)

1. Here is your answer! :) (alaifran@mail.itr.qc.ca)

181. How do I get columns without tables? (dtrudget@aps.faseb.org)

182. I'm looking for a *full* HTML syntax file. (gregport@icon.co.za)

1. HTML syntax file (zabulis@ics.forth.gr)

183. Help me with frame logic! Please!!! (alaifran@mail.itr.qc.ca)

1. Controling 2 frames from one anchor. (mcgibbt@dol.state.fl.us)

184. Web page template (mira@bitmailer.net)

1. Webpage sampler (arnold.langeveld@tip.nl)

185. What is CGI script and How can I use it for data input form (pkchan@sound.net)

186. Frank

188. Guide to Microsoft Internet Assistant for Word Needed. (rthomas@erols.com)

189. Tips for sophisticated frames, anyone? (tkhaugen@online.no)

190. How do you display text from a file? (kreddick@voyageronline.net)

191. How do i make a counter for my webpage (s336240@student.uq.edu.au)

1. I need to know how also (sibble@infomatch.com)

2. How do i make a counter for my webpage

192. Embedding a sound in a HREF button? (tpines@netcom.com)

193. Can i do url link from a form pull down menu ? (mz@shani.net)

194. AVI/ Sound files controlling (nirvana@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)

195. JavaScript reesource hanbook (nirvana@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)

1. JavaScript Resources (neil01@.emirates.net.ae)

2. JavaScript Resources (neil01@.emirates.net.ae)

196. How do you write forms so people can type messages and have it saved on another docuent? (Fries6@aol.com)

197. Q on Frame : How to update two frames with a single mouse click? (raymond-lee@cuhk.edu.hk)

1. Help on changing two frames with one click. (mcgibbt@dol.state.fl.us)

198. How can I create a Form veet CGI???? (jj.gogan@enterprise.net)

199. Looking for Buttons (ron@txinfinet.com)

200. How do I make a counter for html?

201. How do you get an anchor to have > 1 TARGET windows? (rirribar@us.oracle.com)

1. See 183 idea 1 (mcgibbt@dol.state.fl.us)

202. how do i use applets in html (i've gotten them to work but only when the code base is an another url) (gt0891a@prism.gatech.edu)

203. Web Development Support Web Available (john@december.com)

204. Question about Forms etc. (arneih@internet.no)

1. CGI Scripts (100723.3012@compuserve.com)

206. What is the tag that I could setup for visitors to select for printing information (local html file) without viewing it? (law-tech@mail.iag.net)

207. How can I use the HTTP FILE UPLOAD thing? (Ryan V.)

209. hommer (jtymoczk@carleton.edu)

210. CGI Question (kwire@pond.net)

211. How do I make a popup window without javascript? (jschuetze@vnet.ibm.com)

212. Help! (zemla@superlink.net)

213. Link form whitout CGI? (Jean-FrancoisParadis)

214. Embedded Audio (jzagnit@students.miami.edu)

215. how can i put TIME and temperature on my page??? (ytheriault@cyberabitibi.qc.ca)