HTML Course
What is HTML?
HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages.
- HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
- HTML describes the structure of Web pages using markup
- HTML elements are the building blocks of HTML pages
- HTML elements are represented by tags
- HTML tags label pieces of content such as “heading”, “paragraph”, “table”, and so on
- Browsers do not display the HTML tags, but use them to render the content of the page
HTML Tags
HTML tags are element names surrounded by angle brackets:
- HTML tags normally come in pairs like <p> and </p>
- The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
- The end tag is written like the start tag, but with a forward slash inserted before the tag name
HTML Versions
Since the early days of the web, there have been many versions of HTML:
Version Year HTML 1991 HTML 2.0 1995 HTML 3.2 1997 HTML 4.01 1999 XHTML 2000 HTML5 2014 Write HTML Using Notepad or TextEdit
Web pages can be created and modified by using professional HTML editors.
However, for learning HTML we recommend a simple text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac).
We believe using a simple text editor is a good way to learn HTML.
Follow the four steps below to create your first web page with Notepad or TextEdit.
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HTML Documents
All HTML documents must start with a document type declaration: <!DOCTYPE html>.
The HTML document itself begins with <html> and ends with </html>.
The visible part of the HTML document is between <body> and </body>.
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Empty HTML Elements
HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.
<br> is an empty element without a closing tag (the <br> tag defines a line break).
Empty elements can be “closed” in the opening tag like this: <br />.
HTML5 does not require empty elements to be closed. But if you want stricter validation, or if you need to make your document readable by XML parsers, you must close all HTML elements properly.