> I came across this on the Web:
>
> "Html is simple because it is the exact document that is on the
> server, all the server does is send you the exact document when you
> request it, but php is a scripting language with html and it needs to
> be executed before sent. This requires that PHP is installed on the
> server."
>
> Does this mean that my Web hosting company must have PHP already
> installed on their server, or do I have to somehow place it there?
>
> I'm just starting out making a Web site, so I know nothing about all
> this stuff.

Unless YOU plan to write PHP scripts that you want to ask the server to
run for you, it's a moot point and of no concern to you. PHP's job on
the server (and it's not the only language either) is to run code that
creates HTML code, then the server os puts that together with some other
HTML, and it's served out to the client side as an HTML page. The
client never sees PHP code nor the processes that generate the HTML it
creates.

If you plan to write PHP scripts you want to run on the server, then you
have to check that the server will allow you to, has PHP, which version,
and several other things. If server OS's like Apache (currently the
most popular), etc are unfamiliar to you, this is currently beyond your
scope. All you need to create a web site is HTML and possibly some
canned PHP scripts you download, modify and send up to the server (if
the server can run it). If you don't know how to write HTML, PHP might
be pretty useless to you.
I suggest you look it up at wikipedia for an overall of this part.

HTH

Twayne