Setting Up Your First HTML File

You don't need any special software to write HTML — a plain text editor and a web browser are enough. Most developers use a code editor like VS Code because it adds syntax highlighting and autocomplete, but Notepad works too.

Step 1: Create the file Create a new file named index.html. The name index.html is significant — it's the default file most servers look for when you visit a folder or domain.

Step 2: Add the boilerplate

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>My First Page</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Welcome to my website</h1>
  <p>This is my very first HTML page.</p>
</body>
</html>

Each line matters:

<!DOCTYPE html> tells the browser to render using modern HTML5 rules.
<html lang="en"> wraps the whole document and declares its language (helpful for screen readers and search engines).
<meta charset="UTF-8"> ensures special characters — including Bangla text — display correctly.
The viewport meta tag makes the page render properly on mobile devices.

Step 3: Open it in a browser Double-click the file, or right-click → Open With → your browser. You should see "Welcome to my website" rendered as a large heading.

From here on, every concept in this notebook builds directly on top of this file structure.