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HTML Introduction

Written by Philip

HTML. You're going to love it! HTML is basically a markup language that is used to build web pages on the world wide web. HTML is a markup language that all web browsers  understand and interpret; outputting what the developer has developed in HTML to the users web browser. Hopefully creating a great web page experience for the user!

HTML Tags

When you first begin writing HTML, you will notice HTML Tags. HTML Tags are defined keywords that are wrapped inside angular brackets. They tell the web browser how to display 'stuff' within the HTML.

<p> and </p> below are examples of HTML Tags, so are <head></head> and <body></body>

<html>
 <body>
 <p>Hello Groovy World!</p>
 </body>
</html>

At this point you should check out the HTML used to write this page, or one of your favourite web pages.

Check how to view page source within your favorite web browser:

Google Chrome View Source

http://www.how-to-code.com/development-tools/google-chrome-view-source.html

Firefox View Source

http://www.how-to-code.com/development-tools/firefox-view-source.html

Internet Explorer View Source

http://www.how-to-code.com/development-tools/internet-explorer-view-source.html

Hopefully you will see HTML Tags everywhere!

Opening HTML Tag & Closing HTML Tag

HTML Tags need to be opened and closed! Therefore you will usually see one Opening HTML Tag. ie. <p> and one Closing HTML tag ie. </p>. Notice the slash on the closing tag.

The first <p> HTML Tag is called the Opening Tag/Start Tag and the </p> is called the Closing Tag / End tag.

Between these two tags you will have data such as text, images, tabular data etc. that gets displayed by the users browser.

The browser will not display the HTML tags, just the information in-between them.

What does HTML Stand for?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.

The History of HTML

A good read for the History of HTML is on http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/intro/intro.html which discusses Tim Berners-Lee originally developing HTML while he was at CERN.

Navigate to 2.2.1 A brief history of HTML

HTML Editor

If this is your first time developing in HTML I would suggest you choose yourself a HTML Editor. The following link describes what a HTML Editor is and how to get a free HTML Editor to begin developing HTML with.

HTML Editor

Lets begin to develop HTML

Hopefully you want to learn HTML! Well hopefully you do because it is fun!

So lets begin by clicking Next.

Related Articles Link
HTML Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML

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