Setting Up Your Tools: Text Editor and Browser
Setting Up Your Tools: Text Editor and Browser
~7 Min. Lesezeit Zuletzt aktualisiert am August 8, 2026
For this tutorial you need exactly two programs, and both are free: a text editor to write HTML in, and a browser to look at the result. Nothing else.
The text editor: Visual Studio Code
A text editor is a program for writing plain text - unlike Word or LibreOffice Writer, it doesn't add invisible formatting that would confuse HTML. We recommend Visual Studio Code ("VS Code" for short), because it's free, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and a huge number of people use it.
- Open
code.visualstudio.comin your browser. - Click the big download button for your operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux).
- Install the program like any other program (just keep clicking "Next").
- Open VS Code once to check that it works.
Tipp: If for some reason you can't or don't want to install VS Code: the plain Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on the Mac also works - with TextEdit, though, you need to select "Make Plain Text" under the "Format" menu, or it won't work.
The browser
You probably already have a browser: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari all work equally well for this tutorial. If you're unsure which one to pick: any current browser is perfectly fine.
Creating a project folder
Before we write the first file, let's create a folder where our entire website will live. On your desktop (or wherever you like), create a new folder called my-website.
Then open that folder in VS Code: menu File > Open Folder... and select your new folder. On the left side of VS Code you now see the (still empty) folder contents. That's exactly where we'll create our first file in a moment.
Tipp: For file and folder names it's best to use only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, no spaces (so my-website instead of My Website). This isn't required, but it avoids problems later when a website goes online.