HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it is the means by which documents are displayed through web browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer on the Internet. Essentially the browser reads your HTML document and decides (based on the instructions you put there) how to display your stuff, and where it is. HTML allows us to present text, images, sound files, even video in one integrated, good-looking screen. It was developed at CERN, a European physics lab, in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, grad students and faculty at Illinois, just down the road, created Mosaic, the first real web browser, which allowed for a user-friendly display of HTML documents, as well as FTP, Gopher, and other Internet goodies.

HTML Extensions: Netscape and Internet Explorer have built some "extensions" into the basic HTML standard. A standard is a set of guidelines and rules decided upon by a committee. These "extensions" are special features added on to the standard and supported by the browsers. Often a Netscape or IE extension will become part of the the next version of the standard.

HTML works by writing your command between angle brackets (< and >); many commands must be turned on (as in < b > for bold) and turned off (as in < /b >). Some commands, like < P > for paragraph or <BR> for break, don't need an end tag. A tag, like the <font> tag, can have attributes, which are special instructions, just like arguments modify commands in UNIX.

Download the skeleton of a HTML file to play around with by clicking right here.

  1. The first element of any Web page must be the <HTML> tag. It's end tag </HTML> is also the last element, so when you start a page from scratch I'd really recommend you write both tags first, then add stuff in the middle.
  2. Next comes the head tag, which is not seen when you view an HTML page through a browser. But it does contain important information, like the title of the document, where it is on the Web, and most importantly certain rules for presenting this particular document. It needs to be turned off with </head> . You can omit this and use the default presentation rules, as determined by the browser.
  3. The next element should be your <TITLE >tag. This presents text which will appear in the title bar of your browser. It's really a good idea to fill this out. It makes bookmarks more understandable, and you will have a better chance of getting noticed by a search engine like AltaVista, Yahoo!, Infoseek, etc. Right after you type in your title, you need to turn this off with< /TITLE> Important! the TITLE tags fall within the HEAD tags if you include a HEAD section to your HTML document.
  4. The< body> command allows you to set certain general properties for all the stuff you want to present on your page, like background color or image, alignment, text type/color, etc. It needs to be turned off with< /body>, just before the last </HTML> tag.