What is HTML!

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and is used to describe the visual appearance of a document that can be displayed by an internet browser. An HTML document will consist of certain document tags which describe the visual appearance of a web page or to provide a direct command such as inserting images or links to other web pages within a document.

HTML documents are saved in a text format and are designed to be viewed or edited on operating systems that are able to connect to the Internet. XHTML refers to the latest version(s) of the HTML definition that are designed to make use of the extensible markup language definition rules and syntax in order to permit web developers to continue to do advanced web page development.

Required Parts of an HTML Page

HTML documents are made by using opening and closing tags. A closing tag will have the same name as an opening tag, but should be preceded by the / symbol. All HTML documents must have HTML and BODY tags in order to be displayed in a web browser. Other tags that are common to HTML pages include the document HEAD, TITLE, Headings and Paragraph tags. For example:

The html tag in the example code declares the document to be HTML type document to a web browser. The head tag contains a title tag that will be displayed in the top of a web browser and can also contain Javascript, links to css stylesheets and other meta data information for the web page. The body tag contains the information to be displayed in the HTML document, includes a header tag H1 declaration, and defines a paragraph tag p. Although an HTML page can be displayed without tags having corresponding closing tags, it is not considered bad practice and will not be a well-formed document. This may also cause and display errors if none of the tags are closed.

Embedding Images

Internet Browsers are designed to embed images in various formats such as GIF, JPEG, or PNG, with the latest browsers also supporting the W3C approved SVG format for display. HTML code will provide a linked reference to an image that is stored on a web server along with any size and meta information required in order to display the image properly in a web page. If the image can not be retrieved from the web server, alternative display information is included in order to provide a visual text display or alternative information for those who are unable to view pictures. An img tag is used for displaying images in HTML documents, for example, to include an image in the previous example, add the following line of HTML code in between the opening and closing body tags:

The image code will attempt to retrieve the image and will alternatively display the text “my image” to the end user in the event the image can not be downloaded to view.

Link to Other Web Pages

One of the most commonly used aspects of HTML documents is to link to other web pages or resources on the Internet. The HTML tag used to link to another page is the anchor tag, a. In between the opening and closing anchor tag declaration, you include the text or image that you want to be linked to the web address that you provide. For example:

This HTML statement will display the words “My Other Site” which can be selected to open a new window in your web browser to display the “My Other Sites” web page. The href attribute is used to provide the URL for the resource being linked to by the anchor tag declaration.

HTML and The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, is an international community along with other participating member organisations who work constantly to develop and implement certain acceptable Web standards. A common problem early in the use of the Internet, was the complete lack of consistent standards for how to interpret and display web pages. This resulted in an inconsistent quality that was experienced by the users and increased expenditures by the industry to program pages for various multiple web browsers. The W3C HTML group works with industries and academic organisations in order to provide recommendations on the next versions for HTML (or XHTML) to be adopted as international standards that can be implemented by web browser companies.