Web Design with HTML and CSS

Web editors versus WYSIWYG tools

Lesson 3, Web Design Tools 37

Plain text editors

Plain text editors such as Notepad and TextEdit are included with the Mac OS or Windows
operating systems, so you likely already have one installed on your computer. While they are
widely available and free, they are not optimized for web design. Working with plain text
editors requires excellent knowledge of the language you are coding, because they provide
no guidance when writing code. The basic text editors also lack functionality for previewing
your pages in a web browser, or the ability to check pages for correct syntax or broken links.

Writing HTML and CSS in a plain text editor provides little guidance.

These default text editors for the Mac OS and Windows can be used if you have no other
choice, but it is unlikely you will want to use them as your primary web design tool.