Web Design Reference Guide

Text Editors

Last updated Jan 1, 2004.

The cheapest thing to use is the plain text editor that comes with your computer like Notepad, which comes with Windows. There are a few free text editors available for downloading that have HTML tags for quicker entry. Some have the capability for simply inserting an <img> tag and automatically adding the width and height attributes. This saves time of opening the image and looking up its height and width.

This is a list of the more popular text editors:

• HTML-Kit – A Windows editor that is customizable and allows authors to edit, format, validate, preview, and publish Web pages. It can handle XHTML and XML plus it has add-ins and plug-ins available to enhance the application.

• NoteTab - Comes with a lite (free) and paid versions. Not only does NoteTab handle HTML code, but also it can search, replace, count, and handle many opened files with its tabbed interface. (Figure 1)

Figure 1

• UltraEdit – Text editor includes syntax highlighting, spell checker, CTag support, Cpiler support, binary and hexadecimal editing, and macros.

• HomeSite – Macromedia's text editor product, which can handle XHTML and WML tags, project management and site deployment features, wizards, and a customizable interface (Figure 2).

Figure 2

• HotDog – There are several versions available, but Professional is the one used by most Web designers and Junior is for ages 6+. It features FlashWizard, Multilanguage support, and uses minimal computer resources.

• BBEdit – The most popular text editor for those using Macs.

Figure 3

• Pagespinner – Another popular Mac HTML editor Figure 3).

Most, if not all, of these editors allow you to try before you buy or they have a free version. Dori Smith has a list of text editors for the Mac that are low cost or free.