Internet: What is HTML?

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by Matthew Adams

Created on: January 03, 2011 Last Updated: January 06, 2011

HTML is an abbreviation for Hyper-Text-Mark-up-Language. This is the most standard of coding used for websites and web-pages. As such, for those that design websites and pages, this is the code that is required to be drafted with notepads or HTML editors.

The first thing to note about HTML is that it is not standard programming comparable to the likes of Java or C++. Instead, HTML is actually based more on tags which inform browsers how websites and pages are to be displayed. Such tags are included in the triangle brackets <such as this.>

These tags include an opening and closing tag. The opening tag marks the beginning of a specific HTML tag, and then the closing tag marks where the particular HTML tag ends. Closing tags always make use of an / within the tag to indicate that it is a closing tag </like this!>

There are a variety of HTML tags which can be used for websites and web-page design. The most standard tag is that of <HTML> which is included at the beginning of each HTML document to show what type of file it is. They mark the beginning and end of each web-page, and so the rest of the page content is included in-between.

After this, HTML web-pages usually include a <head> tag which includes additional details for pages such as meta tags (keywords used by search engines), any page scripts such as Javascript, a title, and further details such as cascading style sheets included. These are additional details that are not included on the web-page or site itself, but are good for reference.

Overall, there are a variety of HTML tags which can be added to websites and pages. These include some of the following:

• <title> Which gives the page a title

• <p> Used for paragraphing

• <b> To add bold text

• <hr> To add horizontal lines

• <table> For inserting tables

• <a href> Which is used to add links to pages

• <ul> The ul tag adds bulleted lists like as this one

These are just a few of the various HTML tags that can be added to pages. With them, the relevant content is included in-between the opening and closing tags. So, an example of a very basic HTML web-page:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.oorg/TR/html4/strict.dtd">>>>

<html>

<head>

<title>Very basic webpage</title>

</head>

<body>

<p>This would be a very basic web-page, with little else except this sentence included.</p>

</body>

</html>

Finally, it should be noted that HTML are text documents and do not include multi-media and effects. In this respect, images are added via HTML code which have a reference to where they are located, and how they are displayed. In this respect, HTML itself is limited and so additional coding such as Javascript can be added alongside HTML to further enhance websites and pages.

So, HTML provides the basic code for websites. It is not the only code that web-pages and websites may include, but all will include at least some HTML.

Sources: Creating Web Pages

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