Introduction to HTML

htmlguider — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:20:09 +0000

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the basic language used in the creation of web pages. Hypertext means storing the text in electronic data form which can be linked to each other, and markup language means a set of instruction for rendering the information. Earlier in the history of web, web pages consisted of plain text and HTML was used to display it.

When HTML was developed, there were no fixedrules for HTML, and different browsers would display web pages differently
in different formats. In addition, Netscape and Explorer, which were the two most popular web browsers at the time, started creating their own versions of HTML, meaning that a web page designed for Netscape might not display properly in Explorer, and visa versa. To resolve these issues, the World Wide Web Consortium was founded in 1994. Its goal is to set standards that all those involved in web site creation could follow, and that would be displayed similarly no matter which browser was used. The World Wide Web Consortium was instrumental in creating and updating HTML versions, as web pages grew more sophisticated. HTML versions have changed with the times, starting with HTML 2.0 in 1995 (there was no HTML 1.0 designation even though HTML had been in use for several years before HTML 2.0) to the most current version in production: HTML 5.0

Creation of XML was another key development which impacted HTML, which is basically a standard for the creation of Markup Languages, stricter than the standards followed by HTML. XHTML was formed to convert HTML to conform to XML standards, which is basically HTML with stricter guidelines.

HTML is a series of text commands that instruct a web browser how to display a web page, as mentioned above, and therefore a web page can theoretically be designed with a text editor, such as Notepad or Word. However, in practice it is common to use software designed specifically for web page creation, such as Dreamweaver. With this software it is possible in theory to design an advanced website without any familiarity with HTML.

Using Tags, you can built HTML pages. A tag tells the browser how to render a part of the web page. A tag consists of a word or phrase enclosed in brackets. While there are literally hundreds of tags, every webpage will generally include the following: html, head, title and body. In addition, most web pages will include at least one paragraph, or p tag.

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Introduction to HTML