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HTML

HTML communicates information from your Web server to your Web browser. To set up a reliable, useful Web site, you need to understand how HTML works.

HTML Special Characters

HTML displays a limited range of characters because HTML uses standard text and uses some of those text characters to separate HTML from the text. You cannot use <, the less than character, in text because < indicates the start of HTML. How do you insert < in to text within an HTML page? Use < instead of <.

Do other characters create problems? Yes. Quotes, ", create problems because HTML uses quotes as delimiters. Replace quotes with &quote;.

See all the special character substitution codes in the following list. You can sort the list by any column.
HTML Special Characters

PHP

PHP based content management systems can wrap HTML around your content to convert your content to well formed fully themed Web pages. Some content management systems focus on producing well formed HTML while others create Web pages that work only in a few browsers. The best content management systems use a theme system to generate the page outline and you need to select a theme designed to create well formed HTML.

Most of the content management systems lack a useful text editor. You end up creating the text in a professional word processor then copying the text in to the content management system editor. Drupal is a great PHP based content management system that includes a module to easily load your choice of the popular editors. You can test the editors in parallel to find the one that does exactly what you want.