HTML Introduction

Introduction to HTML
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What is HTML?
HTML is a markup language for describing web documents (web pages).

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
A markup language is a set of markup tags
HTML documents are described by HTML tags
Each HTML tag describes different document content
HTML Example
A small HTML document:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
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</html>
Try it yourself
Example Explained
The DOCTYPE declaration defines the document type to be HTML
The text between <html> and </html> describes an HTML document
The text between <head> and </head> provides information about the
document
The text between <title> and </title> provides a title for the document
The text between <body> and </body> describes the visible page content
The text between <h1> and </h1> describes a heading
The text between <p> and </p> describes a paragraph
Using this description, a web browser can display a document with a heading and a
paragraph.
HTML Tags
HTML tags are keywords (tag names) surrounded by angle brackets:
<tagname>content</tagname>
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 slash before the tag name
The start tag is often called the opening tag. The end tag is often called the
closing tag.
Web Browsers
The purpose of a web browser (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari) is to read HTML documents
and display them.
The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to
display the document:
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HTML Page Structure
Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

<html>
<head>
<title>Page title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
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Only the <body> area (the white area) is displayed by the browser.
The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration helps the browser to display a web page correctly.
There are different document types on the web.
To display a document correctly, the browser must know both type and version.
The doctype declaration is not case sensitive. All cases are acceptable:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<!doctype html>
<!Doctype Html>
Common Declarations
HTML5
<!DOCTYPE html>
HTML 4.01
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
XHTML 1.0
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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All tutorials and examples at W3Schools use HTML5.
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
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Introduction to HTML

THE WORLD'S L ARGEST WEB DEVELOPER SITE

HTML is a markup language for describing web documents (web pages).

HTML documents are described by HTML tags

Each HTML tag describes different document content

The DOCTYPE declaration defines the document type to be HTML

The text between <html> and </html> describes an HTML document

HTML tags are keywords (tag names) surrounded by angle brackets:

HTML Page Structure

Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration

All tutorials and examples at W3Schools use HTML5.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, and XML Certifications

SHARE THIS PAGE

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