HTML5 Introduction

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
• With HTML you can create your own Web site.
• This tutorial teaches you everything about HTML.
• HTML is easy to learn - You will enjoy it.

Introduction

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the standard markup language used to create web pages.

HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets (like <html>). HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>, although some tags represent empty elements and so are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, and the second tag is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing tags).

A web browser can read HTML files and compose them into visible or audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to interpret the content of the page. HTML describes the structure of a website semantically along with cues for presentation, making it a markup language rather than a programming language.

HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to createinteractive forms. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. It can embed scripts written in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML web pages.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, which is the most widely used language on Web to develop web pages.

HTML was created by Berners-Lee in late 1991 but "HTML 2.0" was the first standard HTML specification which was published in 1995. HTML 4.01 was a major version of HTML and it was published in late 1999. Though HTML 4.01 version is widely used but currently we are having HTML-5 version which is an extension to HTML 4.01, and this version was published in 2012.

Audience

This tutorial is designed for the aspiring Web Designers and Developers with a need to understand the HTML in enough detail along with its simple overview, and practical examples. This tutorial will give you enough ingredients to start with HTML from where you can take yourself at higher level of expertise.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with this tutorial you should have a basic working knowledge with Windows or Linux operating system, additionally you must be familiar with:

• Experience with any text editor like notepad, notepad++, or Editplus etc.
• How to create directories and files on your computer.
• How to navigate through different directories.
• How to type content in a file and save them on a computer.
• Understanding about images in different formats like JPEG, PNG format.

Try HTML Online

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>                         
<html>
<body>

<h1>My First Heading</h1>

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

</body>
</html>

Try it Yourself »

 Explained

• The DOCTYPE declaration defines the document type
• The text between <html> and </html> describes the web 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 paragraph

Using the 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>
  

  <body>
  

  <h1>This is a heading</h1>

  <p>This is a paragraph.</p>

  <p>This is another paragraph.</p>

  </body>

  </html>

HTML Versions

Since the early days of the web, there have been many versions of HTML:

Version	Year
HTML	1991
HTML+	1993
HTML 2.0	1995
HTML 3.2	1997
HTML 4.01	1999
XHTML	2000
HTML5	2012

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The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration

The <!DOCTYPE> declaration helps the browser to display a web page correctly.

There are many different documents on the web, and a browser can only display an HTML page correctly if it knows the HTML version and type.

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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">