HTML editors are roughly divided into two types-- WYSIWYG and non-WYSIWYG. (WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get" and is pronounced "wizeewig.") When applied to web design tools, WYSIWYG stands for "What You So Intensely Wish You'd Gotten." There really is no such thing as an HTML editor that will allow you to format a Web page the same way you use a desktop publishing (DTP) program to format print documents.

The WYSIWYG editor will do its darndest to format pages the way you want them to look. But there aren't any HTML codes that precisely define such things as tab settings, the distance between lines or spacing between letters. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) attempt to do this sort of thing, but use them carefully, since CSS codes are interpreted differently by the various browsers! And as for fonts, forget everything you learned in DTP. See the typography section for more about fonts.

Even if you must start out with a WYSIWYG editor, don't rely on it to create Web pages that all browsers will interpret correctly. Always test your pages in as many browsers as possible. And learn HTML just as fast as possible, because eventually you must be able to tweak the HTML code so that everything is just right.. So before you purchase an HTML editor, check out these two Web sites:

• Before you buy a WYSIWYG HTML editor, check out HotWired’s WebMonkey survey:"WYSIWYG Editor Shoot-out," comparing Microsoft's FrontPage 2002, Adobe GoLive 5.0, and Macromedia's Dreamweaver 4.
  
  

  "This is the third straight victory for Dreamweaver! Though the win is surely no shock to all you developers who use the program every day. If you've ever had the pleasure of using Dreamweaver, you know that it just makes building a website remarkably painless. Whether you're slapping together some quick brochure-ware, or donning your coder cap to create a thousand-page, dynamic site with all of the ubiquitous accoutrements, Dreamweaver 4 has the refined tools, the easy interface, and the well-developed standards support that you desperately need."

• You don't need an expensive WYSIWYG editor to create great Web pages. ZDNet's article "Wanna build Web pages--for cheap? Here's how" takes a look at some great non-WYSIWYG Web authoring tools for the PC that do an awful lot for very small prices. One of them is absolutely FREE.
(Mac folks will want to look at BBEdit.) Many free or low-cost Web editors can actually create JavaScript, CSS, and XML. Of course, if you use these editors, you'll need at least a basic knowledge of how these codes work.