I'm hoping someone around here maybe able to answer a quick question for me. I'll do my best to explain the problem.
For years now, I've been designing websites in only Html.
Since my sister and her husband know nothing about Html, I'm helping them out designing a website for his new job.

Here is how I found out about CSS codes.
Anyways, I was trying to get a bit of help on getting things in my table to align properly- from a forum I found for a site to get help on all kinds of things- html, css, and so on.
Then they start saying something about my CSS codes.

1.One of the main things I'm trying to find out is why people are able to view my websites if I only have done it in html?
Here are some addresses to some of my sites, to see what I'm talking about the sites seem to be working, and then you can view the codes I've put in and can help me figure out why it's working right.
here is my American Idol site-
http://www.geocities.com/amymusicfan/americanidol7.html
My site I've made up on the movies is here-
http://www.geocities.com/moviefan756/2008fallmovies.html


2. After you look at them, the other question, is CSS even necessary for the Html part to work? If so, then another question, I have is in order to keep my websites looking the way they already look, do I need to rewrite it in that same order in the CSS section.

I'm getting so confused with all this CSS stuff, it's starting to really get me more and more stressed out what to do, and if I messed up the site I'm doing for my brother-in-law's new job.
By going through so many different css help sites over the past week or so, making up tutorials to print out and stuff to study over all this, I think I'm understanding the CSS codes more, but still getting confused on how to put the CSS and html codes all together on the same page.


Thank you very much in advance for all the help,
Amy

Umm, Amy, I know absolutely nothing about websites, codes or any such thing. But, I'm wondering, if you are already getting help for your problem on that other site, wouldn't you ask them about CSS codes? Maybe I'm confused, but wouldn't they be the "go to guy" to answer your question? There may be someone here that can answer, but it sure isn't me! I'm just curious, I suppose.

I have already been trying to get them to help me, but they don't seem to be understanding my questions and I'm not understanding them much either as to why when I've been making websites all these years in only html, then why are people able to even see them correctly.

This is just becoming too much stress for me to handle anymore. That's a big reason why I'm on disability and don't have a job due to my health, and stress does make it worse. If the CSS codes are necessary, then my brother-in-law will just have to find someone else and pay them to have them do the codes up in CSS to match the design that it is by doing html codes. Which I'm doing it for free.

Sites written in HTML only will work well and everyone will be able to see them. However, you should make sure that pages will look the same in all types of browser. A large percentage of people on the Internet use browsers other than Internet Explorer. If you're writing web pages, it could be best if you install Opera and Firefox to make sure these browsers display your pages properly too.

Ideally, pages should validate with W3C (the Markup Validation Service) to make sure they are standards compliant. That's not always easy but with persistence, it is possible. Some web page editors will clean code up and make it standards compliant but if yours doesn't, this tool may help. It's what I used.

I know little about CSS. My site uses a stylesheet for fonts and page background colour. I rather think that sites written using CSS tend to look smarter than those using only HTML but I wouldn't know how to write one. This is why my site looks kind of dated compared to others that have rounded corners, smooth flowing lines etc.

Finding out about all these things is time consuming and intensive ..and what's more, a solitary occupation. You'll find that most people won't be able to answer your questions because it isn't them who have the web pages and code in front of them. You have to keep researching and trying things for yourself, making mistakes an hopefully, getting the results you want in the end.

Google is your friend.

Edit: Typo

Thank you so much for explaination, and the sites to check out for more help.

I also did notice about sites looking different depending on what browser you view them in. Since my computer has Netscape and IE and my mom's has Mozilla and IE. It seems to look just fine and the same in Netsape in Mozilla, but IE seems to move it a bit, but still seemed to look ok and didn't require scrolling to see the rest of the page.

Then another thing someone said is that I'm doing things the long harder way and missing a few steps. I thought creating a site in html was easy, and they say I'm doing it harder. But then we somehow have to add the CSS codes to it.
I still think I'm understanding how a little better how to do codes in CSS, but then I keep getting some people saying not to use tables anymore and that tables are old.
Doesn't this site, funtrivia have tables all over the site?

When learning to do codes in html, I opened accounts and stuff at places like Geocities, Angelfire. Some guy I was getting help with said to dump Geocities because their server rewrites your html codes in Javascript.
Then keeps saying to go buy all these other things.
Since I don't work I don't even have the money to get something that will even allow me to create a .css file.

This site does use tables and cells but then it's designed to fulfil a specific function, which it does well and in a visually presentable fashion. Just because tables and cells have been used for years doesn't mean they shouldn't be used anymore. It may be that sites look do better using CSS but that doesn't make tables and cells redundant in my opinion. There's still a place for them.

As said, if you want your sites to look modern and flashy, you will perhaps need to learn a different way of constructing them. Maybe doing a search for free web page templates would be an option. However, if you just want a site that is presentable and functional, then still use only HTML and don't worry about the criticism of being behind the times.

My site had some JavaScript functions in it but then some people disable JavaScript in their browsers for security reasons. This means they won't see any JavaScript menus (for instance) or other page content that relies on JavaScript. I took it out of my own site and reverted to plain old hyperlinks for this reason. At least with with everything being HTML only, everyone will be seeing all the page content as intended. But, as said earlier, it does have a dated look to it compared to many other sites. I'm not worried though. It was just an interest for a while and now just sits there somewhat unloved.

Mozilla and Netscape are the same thing - that's why the pages should look the same.

CSS, from what my web-designer husband has told me, are good in that if you want to revamp your entire website, you just have to update one page and because it basically directs the browser to look somewhere else for how to display the items/text.

CSS is not required for websites - I've never written a website with one.

Don't worry about dumping Geocities - it's fine for a free account. Same thing as tripod and Angelfire - I used all three until getting my own domain.

I would suggest looking at a couple websites that show basic HTML coding. Don't worry about doing anything fancy - tables should be the most you need to know for a good basic page.

The best piece of advice I can give you is don't do anything you can't figure out on your own. Why? Because if something goes wrong with your page, you need to know how to fix it because you won't be able to depend upon others to fix the site for you.