What is HTML?

BLHteacher | Resources


HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It's a an embedded language of directions that browsers read to display text, images and hyperlinks on the World Wide Web (www). HTML was designed in 1992 specifically as a semantic markup language, but it had few layout capabilities. The underlying philosophy was that by marking your content with descriptions any machine in the world could then interpret those tags. An HTML file is just a page of text, like an email message or a word document. It can be created and processed by a wide range of tools and text editors (BBedit, simple text, MSword, HomeSite). An HTML file contains all the elements that will appear on your web page, plus instructions to the browser about where those elements should go and how they will appear. Pictures, animations and sound can be included in the HTML file. Not taking the time to learn HTML is like learning English without understanding the alphabet.

Helpful Tips

Tags are letters or words between two brackets <tag> that define text and images inside an HTML document. HTML uses tags to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists and hyperlinks. For example, there's a tag that will make your text bigger, another that will center it on the page, and another that will create a link to take you to somewhere else.

How To

  • Start by selecting the tag that you want to use.
  • Place the tag in front of the word that you want to change. This tells the browser what to do in that spot.
  • Always remember to close the tag when you are finished telling the text what you want it to do.