To think I can easily learn HTML?

[SevenShades]

I need to be able to use this in a new job, they know I can’t but it would make my job a lot easier if I could! I’ve downloaded an app and understand the basics but applying it at work feels way beyond me. Realistically how long should it take to learn to be able to write a web page?

You can do it. I grasped the basics over a couple of weeks (2hr lesson weekly). Get one of the dummies books (the library usually has) and a site called codepen is great for practice and learning from others. Good luck

You could learn the tags etc. depends on how much time you dedicate.

But I presume they use a specific piece of editing software? Do you know what that is?

It's extremely easy. You also don't need to bother because there are programs such as Dreamweaver that write the HTML code for you. Nobody bothers to write it by hand.

If you only need to be able to make changes to an existing page then should be do-able fairly quickly (from experience)
Creating something from scratch would be a lot harder and fairly unusual to ask you to do that with no experience. Most web stuff I've done has been via a content management system (CMS) that means non-techy coder types can do it fairly easily.

Code academy do a free html course.

The things I need to be able to do is edit existing web pages, add HTML to pages in Wordpress to change the design and content of the page. Create descriptions for things in a spreadsheet using HTML, and be able to see why something isn’t displaying correctly by looking at the code.

If you are using Wordpress it’s pretty easy to toggle between visual and html page views to tweak code.

Trial and error (and copy everything you do in case of cock ups!)

If you can be arsed to learn it then you shouldn't have any problems. To be honest if a company is still using basic html though it is usually easier to use an editor like Dreamweaver.

Have a look at w3school website. Fab resource and I use it all the time

and be able to see why something isn’t displaying correctly by looking at the code.

And the browser(s) ...

And if that's your goal, make sure you get Cascading Style Sheets under your belt, as that's where a lot of display issues hide.

If they know you do not already use HTML then you will most likely be copying code snippets into specific areas, so most likely you will just need to understand the basics to start with (ie understanding basic tags).

As others have said though, its best to get a good understanding of HTML and CSS, for a real quick rundown on html I would go to w3schools and then move onto something like codecademy,

Can you learn HTML?

I don't see why not.

Surprised it is still needed though.

I thought that these days it would be considered similar to coding in assembler or machine code!

@SevenShades, used to edit my own blog. I'd open up the source information (by right clicking on a windows pc on Google chrome browser and selecting the option I think it may say open source but can't remember) I'd mess around with split screen seeing what impact my changes had on my blog. Tumblr is really good for this.

I think Code Academy is meant to be good btw

@TeenTimesTwo

Maybe you should go back for a refresher, every tag has needed a closing tag for over a decade

You ca di ti op/

You can do it!

Not code, obv

Teen, you need to close your s.
Like this

OP, if you right-click on this page, then select View source, it will show you what the HTML for this page looks like.

Even with Dreamweaver or CMSs or whatever, it's still much quicker & easier sometimes to be able to just edit the code by hand.

I'm not surprised I made a mistake. It is over a decade since I have done any html **

Dreamweaver was notorious for really bad code though, so glad I no longer have to deal with front end stuff anymore.

I’ve found that as long as I’m applying it, I get it. Then I stop and have to go over everything again. I really enjoyed teamtreehouse.com Made everything really simple and I was able to apply it easily at work (updating/modifying the website etc).

HTML is pretty easy. It's similar to the formatting used for forum posts here, just a bit more advanced.

CSS is somewhat harder. Ordinary formatting is still pretty simple but using it for page layout can be quite complex.

HTML is easy, but it's really not much use without CSS. Doing page layout and formatting without CSS is a bit stone age.

CSS isn't that hard to learn either though, it's just another set of rules.