HTML-Kit on Windows
(last updated: Jul 26, 2009) — print

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HTML-Kit is a free, highly functional HTML editor. The home page is this:

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
Click the DOWNLOAD button at the top of the page which takes you to the download URL:
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/download/
Click the Download HTML-Kit button and save the installation file HKSetup.exe in a directory.

The installation file is also available from my website at this link
HKSetup.exe

The installation

Install HKSetup.exe by double-clicking and following the Installation Wizard instructions. Except for the License Agreement, in which you have to select the I accept the agreement, take all the defaults and thereby do a full installation. At the end allow HTML-Kit to start up automatically.

After installation, it brings up the panel: HTML-Kit Setup Plus. You can do the updates later, so just click the lower button telling it to open HTML-Kit. The first time you run HTML-Kit asks you several questions, the first of which is
Do you want HTML-Kit to associate with standard HTML file extensions?
It says Click No if not sure. You should probably click no, because more than likely you want one of the external browsers (IE, Netscape, ..) to be the associated application.

For the other questions, it probably doesn't matter what you do, so you can take the defaults. The last question asked by the wizard is whether to take a tour of HTML-Kit - click No if you just want to get the installation done and get on with it.

The installation places an entry in the Programs menu. After you've installed it, you no longer need HKSetup.exe unless for reinstallation.

First test: create a simple HTML file.

Start up HTML-Kit and select the Create New File (it's probably the default) from the Open File Wizard which executes each time HTML-Kit is started. Observe that the basic structure of a standard HTML file is presented with the html, head, title and body tags in place. Type in the following text within the body start and end tags. 
  Hello from HTML

Save it via the File menu or else use the save button. Navigate to where you want the file placed (say in the Desktop); type First, save it, and you should see First.htm appear as the file name in HTML-Kit's edit window (with the Editor tab).

Now click on the Preview tab to see the results; this is HTML-Kit's own built-in web browser. The preview works regardless of whether you have saved the changes or not, but you must save the changes if you want to look at the result in an external browser.

If you close HTML-Kit and later want to go back and re-edit this same file you can often select Open last file from the Open File Wizard.

Plugin Installation

HTML-Kit has a number of useful plugins which easily extend the functionality of HTML-Kit. The entire set of plugins can be viewed at
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/plugins/
An example of a useful plugin is one called gmExtChars which can be found at
http://www.chami.com/html-kit//plugins/info/extchars/
or my website at
gmExtChars.zip
Installing this one is similar to any installation:
  1. Download the gmExtChars.zip plugin file. It's not necessary to unzip it,
  2. Open HTML-Kit and select Install Install Plugin from HTML-Kit's Tools menu. Select gmExtChars.zip and click OK.
  3. If any additional prompts appear, follow them to complete the installation.

© Robert M. Kline