Can you hand write a website in Notepad?
Tags: html, challenge, notepad
Published: 2019-02-03 14:05:19

---
title: Can you hand write a website in Notepad?
published: true
description: Hand writing websites in Notepad is pretty stupid. But can you do it?
tags: html, challenge, notepad
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/8qiot26o2ku9tgjkna25.jpg
---
I'm deep into VS Code. My React application grows like cabbage. With Prettier, ESLint, IntelliSense and Hot Reloading by my side, I can't really be stopped. I fix bugs, avoid files that have too much awful and complex code for me to stomach, and admire a couple of beautifully simple components that render incredible results on the screen using sophisticated chained array methods and smart dynamic styling.

Suddenly my mind wanders off to the millennium. I remember back then I made [websites](https://web.archive.org/web/20021017025141/http://www.dbzworld.nl:80/nl/) too. For the longest time I was creating my sites in Microsoft Frontpage. Table after table, image after image, font after font; I was building little shrines dedicated to all my hobbies. I also learned a little `HTML` from a book my mother bought me.

So after a while, each time Frontpage refused to do what I wanted it to do, I opened up my `index.html` in Notepad. I searched for where I placed text I knew I could read to locate where the code should be adjusted. With a bit of trial and error I got better and better at it.

At one point I didn't really need Frontpage anymore to create a layout. I was just writing pure `HTML`. I don't think I even knew what `CSS` was. I designed my layouts in Photoshop, sliced 'm up in little pieces and then fit them into tables. It seemed I had a lot of fun back then, but it got me to wonder though...

_Can I still hand write a website in Notepad like I did back then, without looking up anything on Google?_

Well... I tried... and the answer is yes. But it's not pretty, it hurt my head and I don't think I ever want to do it again.

Anyway, here's my shameful attempt at hand writing a simple three column website  as if I was 12 years old again. I discovered that modern browsers are very forgiving of my mistakes and that I'm blessed to know how `CSS` works at my now very advanced age.

```html
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My Handwritten Webpage</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <table width="1000px">
        <td bgcolor="blue" width="200px">
          <font color="white" face="tahoma"><b>Navigation</b></font>
          <ul>
            <li><a href="index.html"><font color="white">Home</font></a></li>
            <li><a href=""><font color="white">About</font></a></li>
          </ul>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
        </td>
        <td width="600px" bgcolor="red">
           <table>
             <tr>
               <td>
                 <marquee>
                   <font color="white" face="verdana" size="4px">My Handwritten Webpage</font>
                 </marquee>
               </td>
             </tr>
             <tr>
               <td>
                 <font face="arial" size="15px" color="pink"><i>Welcome to my page! I hope you like it :)</i>
                 </font>
                 <br>
                 <br>
               </td>
             </tr>
	     <tr>
		<td bgcolor="white">
		  <font>This is so very hard... I can't for the life of me remember how to do this... And I forget to refresh to see my updates.</font>
                </td>
	     </tr>
           </table>
        </td>
	<td width="200px" bgcolor="orange">
          <font face="tahoma"><b>Affliates</b></font>
          <br>
          <a href="https://dev.to">Dev.to</a>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
          <br>
        </td>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>
```
Here's the result in a [CodeSandBox](https://codesandbox.io/s/j78qk9rqq3)

_So, how about you? Can you handle this challenge? Can you write an `index.html` in pure `HTML` without any Googling?_ Show me!