HTML Pocket Reference [Paperback]

Jennifer Niederst Robbins (Author)

Book Description

Series: Pocket Reference (O'Reilly) | Publication Date: December 8, 1999

In this pocket reference, Jennifer Niederst, the author of the best-selling Web Design in a Nutshell, delivers a concise guide to every HTML tag.

Each tag entry includes:

• Detailed information on the tag's attributes
• Support information on browsers such as Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and WebTV
• HTML 4.0 support information, including whether the tag is deprecated in the current spec

In addition to tag-by-tag descriptions, you'll find useful charts on such topics as:

• Character entities
• Decimal-to-hexadecimal conversions
• Color names

Niederst also provides context for the tags, indicating which tags are grouped together and bare-bones examples of how standard web page elements are constructed.

This pocket reference is targeted at web designers and web authors and is likely to be the most dog-eared book on every web professional's desk.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...this pocket reference is well worth the shelf space. Even better, prop it between your screen and speaker so it is immediately available when needed." - Andrew Cormack, News@UK, July --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jennifer Niederst Robbins was one of the first designers for the Web. As the designer of O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial web site, she has been designing for the Web since 1993. Since then, she has worked as the creative director of Songline Studios (a former subsidiary of O'Reilly) and as a freelance designer and consultant since 1996. She is the author of the bestselling "Web Design in a Nutshell" and "Learning Web Design (O'Reilly), and she has taught web design at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Johnson and Wales University in Providence. She has spoken at major design and Internet events including SXSW Interactive, Seybold Seminars, the GRAFILL conference (Geilo, Norway), and one of the first W3C International Expos. In addition to designing, Jennifer enjoys cooking, travel, indie-rock, and making stuff. She maintains her own professional web site at http://www.littlechair.com as well.

Product Details

• Paperback: 95 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2 edition (December 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565925793
• ISBN-13: 978-1565925793
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,472,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars indispensible, August 26, 2000

By 

Mayer Goldberg (Beer Sheva, Negev Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTML Pocket Reference (Paperback)

A pocket guide to HTML that covers HTML 4.0. This is about the most useful book, in terms of daily use, that you could ever own on HTML. I give it 4 stars because of two problems:

- The tags are ordered alphabetically, which is good. But it would have been better if tags had a "related tags" item that listed tags that are relevant to the given tag. For example, <TABLE></TABLE> makes no mention of <TR></TR> and <TD></TD>... I realise that this is a reference and not a textbook, but it would add to the usefulness of this book immensely.

- Insufficient (close to none) information on styles. It would help a lot to make this reference self-contained, if each with each tag, there was a very brief description of the style components that control its look.

The character entity table is very useful, if incomplete. The colour chart is a nice and useful addition.

All in all, this is a VERY useful book. Get it and stop carrying around those heavy HTML tomes... My criticism is just meant for improving the next edition... (hint, hint, ... )

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a tutorial, but a good quick reference, January 31, 2000

By 

Mark "mark0" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTML Pocket Reference (Paperback)

This book is the functional equivalent of those "quick reference cards" that come with software manuals. You won't learn HTML from it, but that's not really the point; the point is to look up information you know exists, but can't reasonably keep in your head.

For example, this book lists all HTML tags in alphabetical order, rather than grouping them functionally (except as almost an afterthought) - not really useful if you have no idea what tag to use in a given situation, but useful if you need to know what attributes you can specify for a tag and what browsers support those attributes. And it excels when you're analyzing the HTML structure of an existing page and you run across a tag you don't know or have never seen used in quite the way you're seeing it used.

Combine this with a complete list of character entities ("&" characters), decimal to hex conversions and colors by name, and put it all in a small, thin volume you can keep in your briefcase without having to make room for it, and you have a pretty useful reference. Four stars for being what it sets out to be; not as a substitute for a more comprehensive HTML book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Reference for the Web Expert, but Not for Beginners, December 12, 2000

By 

"schapel" (Hillsborough, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HTML Pocket Reference (Paperback)

This book is essentially just an alphabetical list of most of the HTML tags and attributes. Each is explained briefly and the browsers that support each tag are listed. At the end of the book is a list of "tag groups" that group functionally related tags, a list of character entities, and a table of colors. If you're very familiar with HTML and just need this listing of tags and attributes, this is the book for you!

If you're not an HTML expert, however, this book might be more confusing that helpful. For example, if you want to center some text but you don't want to use the deprecated <center> tag, you need to know which tag to look up. There are few examples, so if you want to add a Java applet to a page, you need to already know what to put in the <object> tag. There's no description of the <!DOCTYPE> tag that all HTML 4 compliant web pages need. Much of the HTML in the book is not XHTML compliant. Although the book claims to cover every tag in HTML 4, there are some that it leaves out. And the only web site the book refers to is yet another alphabetical list of tags.

If you already know HTML well and have a good HTML reference book, this book will allow you to quickly look up information tags and attributes. But if you're not an expert and want to write good, clean HTML 4 compliant markup, save your money.