A basic knowledge of HTML and CSS never hurts. Most people possess some basic html just from using forums, social sites and chat rooms. The common markup used there (html tags), is just that… common and usually familiar – but the answer is pretty much no. WordPress has both an html editor, as well as a visual or “WYSIWYG” editor for writing and editing. So you don’t really need to know much about code to get started. Is it a benefit to learn a little along the way? Most definitely yes.
You don’t have to pay for wordpress software, and the Theme and Plugin repositories here are just loaded with free to use themes and plugins of exceptional diversity and quality. You will of course, have to pay for your web-space/hosting service. Like anything, there is a learning curve, but if you are comfortable with reading and following directions, and have a little patience, it gets very rewarding, very quickly. – Just my thoughts on the matter.
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