With the Palm VII wireless Internet, cell phones that offer Web access, and other pocket sized computers, it is getting more and more important to think about how your Web site displays on the palm sized computers and internet devices.

There are four basic rules to create a good site for a palm sized device:

1. Stick to basic HTML tags such as: P, BR, B, I, PRE, headers (H1-6), BLOCKQUOTE, CENTER, UL, OL, LI, images, tables
2. Avoid frames, layers, imagemaps, plugins, Javascript, Java, and CSS
3. Keep your screens small, and avoid clutter
4. Be aware of how graphics are displayed

Graphics
Graphics are tricky on a PDA. Most PDA browsers support images, but the PDAs are usually not color, and they often have less resolution than a personal computer. Standard Palm III computers have 4 color grayscale screens. Palm V's have 16 colors of gray. And the new Palm IIIc has 216 colors.

Once you've got the colors figured out, then there is the size. Most Palm devices (Pilot, Palm III, etc.) have a screen width and height of about 150x150 pixels. Images that are larger than that are resized to fit. It's a better idea to create images for your PDA pages that are less than 150x150.

HTML
Most PDAs support a limited version of HTML 3.2. If you stick with basic layout and formatting tags, you'll create a better site for your PDA readers.

Content
Content is where your PDA page will work or fail. The key is to set up pages that have enough content to keep your offline PDA readers happy, but not so much that it won't download or be difficult to read. You have to look at your site and decide what is the most essential. Web pages that are viewed on a PDA are usually used as a reference and should be short and to the point.

Tips to Remember