HTML stands for hypertext markup language. This is one of the first things that anyone needs to know about HTML. If you are going to learn about HTML, you need to know what it stands for. Let me tell you one thing; my first taste of HTML was in 1998 where I had taken a class on the internet so I did learn a thing or two when it came to HTML. Also my thirst for knowledge when it came to HTML did not stop there It continued on after the class was over to the point that I am an HTML expert. When I am not writing articles or blog entries, I am creating webpages in HTML.
HTML is not that hard to learn if you have the time to sit down and actually learn HTML. The first thing that I would love to tell you is that you really should not expect to learn everything right away as that is not going to happen. I also will advise you to go and buy a very comprehensive HTML book. You will definitely need it if you need to look up HTML codes. There are so many different codes that there is no way to memorize each and every code you want to use. Obviously, you will learn some of them especially if you use some of the codes on a regular basis, but still it is important to have the book on hand when you do get stuck.
In order to create a HTML document, there are two editors I would suggest to you. They are notepad or Dreamweaver. When I had learned HTML in 1998, I first learned how to use HTML in notepad, but we also learned how to create a site through netscape composer. Netscape composer is considered a wysiwyg editor. Wysiwyg stands for what you see is what you can get. What this means is that you can add add anything to it without having to know any html tags, but the downside is you do not have that much control. Dreamweaver on the other hand is a mixture of both as you can put all of the codes in if you prefer to code it by hand without resorting to the lazy way of not using codes. What I do like about that software is that it does add all of the important tags in there for you so you really do not have to worry about the basic coding.
When creating an HTML file, it must contain these tags: <html> <head> <title>title</title> </head> <body> </body> </html>
I know this may look confusing to you, but in time it will not be, but it does take time to learn. So what I am basically telling you is that you should not expect to learn it all at once. Rome after all was not built in one day. The same goes with learning HTML. It takes time to learn and the more you use the codes, the more you will remember.
If you take a look at the example that I have shown above, you will see different tags. You see the <html> and </html>. They look alike except for one thing; the second html tag has a backslash as that is how you close a tab. The title tags, you choose a title that you want to be shown on the top of your browser window when you open up the page and write it in between the two title tags. If you want text to be added to the page, you need to place it in between the body tags. To create a paragraph you need a <p> tag.
Some other tags that you may like are: <b> - bold <i>- italics <u> -underline
Now that I gave you the quick overview of HTML, I would like to tell you to go and find a good book on HTML as there is quite a few different code possibilities, but the ones I did show you are the codes that are used often.