Web Design in a Nutshell by the same author is something of a classic, with just the right blend of explanation, tips, and technical reference. This little 96-page guide is based on the longer book and provides a complete alphabetical list of the tags and attributes available in HTML 4.0. For each tag and attribute, there is an example of syntax, a compatibility list and a concise explanation. The compatibility list covers Netscape Navigator from versions 2.0 to 4.0, Internet Explorer from 2.0 to 5.0, WebTV, and Opera 3.0. This is ideal for hard-pressed Web authors with the difficult task of producing pages that behave properly with a variety of browsers.

The tag listing takes up most of the book, but there is also space for a list of tags grouped by function and tables of character entities and colours (character entities are special characters and symbols represented in HTML by names or numeric values). The colour table lists the 140 allowable colour names with their RGB values and hexadecimal equivalents, while also showing how each colour is represented (or misrepresented) on 8-bit systems. Most Web authors need a reference of this kind and this pocket-size book is one of the best ways to provide it. Note that this is not a tutorial and is only suitable if you work with HTML source code as well as visual design tools. This will not be your only book on HTML or Web design, but it will be one of the most used. --Tim Anderson