Sessions need a laptop or desktop.
If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer.
HTML and CSS · Foundations
Build a client’s page by hand, and read the browser back.
What you’ll end up with
One finished page. A small business’s own words marked up for what they mean, their pictures carrying the text a picture needs, and a stylesheet of your own holding the brand’s colours, type and spacing — a folder you keep, that opens in any browser on any machine.
9½
hours in all — about 6 guided, 3½ on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in HTML and CSS. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with HTML and CSS. There’s no payment and no card required.
From four raw files to a finished page
0195 min
Get a page on the screen, and prove it is a page
You have written a web page by hand in the editor your computer already had, saved it so the browser draws it as a page rather than printing its characters, opened it, and changed it and seen the change.
0295 min
Mark the words up for what they mean
Every piece of writing on the page now says what it is: headings at the levels the studio's own structure implies, paragraphs where the sheet meant paragraphs, importance where the copy stresses something, and the steps and the services as the two kinds of list they really are.
0395 min
Links, and the words a picture needs
The page now has a link whose text says where it goes, and every picture the studio sent — each with the words a reader who cannot see it needs, one of them renamed because its file name would not travel, and one of them given nothing on purpose.
04105 min
Give the page a stylesheet of its own
The page now carries the studio's own colours and typefaces, from a stylesheet in a file of its own — and one of the brand sheet's colours has been ruled out for body text, because you worked out that it does not reach the minimum and the sheet's note was wrong.
0580 min
When two rules disagree
You can say, before you reload, which of two rules will win and why — and you have put the brand's capitals on the masthead from the stylesheet, leaving the document holding the studio's name as a name.
06100 min
Boxes, and a page that holds together
The page has its regions, a column of the width the brand sheet asks for, the sheet's spacing round it, pictures that shrink rather than overflow, and a footer panel — and it holds together on a narrow screen as well as a wide one.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Windows or a Mac, using the text editor the system already includes.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser, beside HTML and CSS.
HTML and CSS
Nothing to install and no account to create — this course uses what your computer already has.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
Nothing is paid to anyone at any point. The software is a plain text editor your computer already has and a current browser: nothing is installed, no account is created, and no licence is needed.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course.
Before you start
The course covers HTML and CSS, on your own computer.
- A desktop or laptop computer running Windows, a Mac or Linux, with the text editor it already came with. Nothing is installed at any point.
- A current browser — Chrome or Edge. No account is created and nothing is signed into.
- The Fern & Flint folder, downloaded from the course page and unpacked somewhere you can find again. The course uses a folder of its own under your documents.
- Inside that folder: copy.csv, services.csv, images.csv and brand.csv, which are the words, the services, the pictures and the brand sheet; and an images folder holding the pictures themselves.
- The Copperline Bindery folder, downloaded from the same place into a folder of its own, for the on-your-own run. It holds files of the same four names, which is why it goes in a separate folder.
- About an hour of quiet per session, and somewhere to write down two things you will want again.
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Take a small client's content pack — their words, their pictures, their brand sheet — and turn it into a web page you wrote by hand, with nothing installed and no account created, checking what the browser did with it at every step rather than hoping.
One finished page for a small business, built from the pack that business handed over: the words marked up for what they mean, the pictures carrying the text a picture needs, and a stylesheet of its own carrying the brand's colours, type and spacing. You keep the folder, and it opens in any browser on any machine.
How a session works
- Open your work
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open HTML and CSS and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 9½ hours in all·about 6 guided·about 3½ on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- HTML and CSS Foundations — build a client's page by hand, and read the browser back
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The page you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Writing a web page by hand in a plain text editor and saving it so a browser reads it as a page · Marking copy up for what it means — heading levels, paragraphs, importance, and three kinds of list — rather than for how it should look · Writing the characters the markup reserves as character references, and knowing which ones the standard actually requires · Placing pictures with the text a picture needs, and deciding what a decorative picture gets instead · Attaching an external stylesheet and writing type and class selectors against the document · Reading a brand sheet and ruling out a colour that does not reach the contrast minimum for its size · Predicting which of two rules wins, from source order, specificity and inheritance · Sizing and spacing a column with the box model, and making pictures shrink with it · Reading your own page back through the browser's element inspector and its own source, and finding the difference between what you wrote and what the browser did
What was built
One finished page for a small business, built from the pack that business handed over: the words marked up for what they mean, the pictures carrying the text a picture needs, and a stylesheet of its own carrying the brand's colours, type and spacing. You keep the folder, and it opens in any browser on any machine.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for HTML/CSS Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the page you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in HTML and CSS when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s HTML and CSS?
HTML and CSS is the software this course is built in. It runs on your own computer.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Fern & Flint design small gardens. They have no website and they have never had one. What they do have is a folder somebody in the studio put together: a sheet of the words they want to say, a few photographs and drawings with a column for what each one shows, and a one-page brand sheet a designer drew up for them years ago, listing the colours, the two typefaces and the spacing. Nobody in the studio can turn that into a page, and nobody has checked whether the sheet's instructions can be followed. You have a browser, a text editor your computer already came with, and the folder. Everything the page says has to come out of that folder, and anything in it that cannot be used has to be caught by you rather than by a visitor.
Your job is to build the page that answers it.
Do I need to know HTML and CSS already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 9½ hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 6 hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. HTML and CSS runs on Windows and macOS.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
HTML and CSS Foundations is Foundations in HTML/CSS. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in HTML and CSS. All the courses →