Because you are creating pages that will be viewed on many different systems, it is important to use common fonts - helvetica or arial (sans serif) and times or times new roman (serif) are pretty sure bets.  They are fonts installed on most systems.  If you use an unusual font it will only appear in that font on systems that have that font - other systems will see the page in their default font (one of the ones listed above). 

Rule:  Use only these common fonts: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Times, Times New Roman, Courier.  Be consistent with fonts. Too many typographic changes make your pages look like ransom notes.
 

• Do not use underlining. On web pages when a link is created it is automatically underlined.  You will confuse your audience if you use underlining as a style.
• Be careful with italics - these are sometimes difficult to read.  (Remember your audience may be seeing the page with different fonts than what you see.)
• Be very careful with using flashing on web pages - it's very distracting and takes away from the content of pages.
• Changing the color, size and style of the text is done the same as with a word processor.

It is important to save often while creating files. 

Rule:  Save often.  Save your files so they are all in the same folder or directory.  Do not change the names of the files or the links will not work later on. 

Everyone once in a while you should change the size of your window to check  to see how it will look to different people. Checking your file on another computer is another way to check too. 

Rule:  Check to be sure you have not pressed the Enter or Return key at the end of lines.

Please spell check your files too!  To spell check in Composer  just pull down Tools to Check Spelling. 

Rule:  Spell check and edit your files.

This file contains the information you need to edit your first file for the course, but the information is valid for all the web files you create.