HTML

HTML is a markup language that structures web content with tags (e.g., headings, paragraphs, links). CSS designs the layout; HTML5 is the standard.

HTML is the abbreviation for "Hypertext Markup Language." It is a markup language used to structure text documents, images, and other contents of a page. An HTML document consists of two components:

HTML Element
HTML tag

The tags are the parts used to open and close an object in the document. An element includes the tags and the text content of such. The HTML code of a page, the so-called source code, is composed of both.

Consequently, HTML can be referred to as a fundamental language in the World Wide Web. It is also relevant for creating content. Since it is a language, it is not programmed, but written. Just like learning a spoken language, vocabulary must be learned to create the correct "sentences" in HTML.

Through the markup language HTML, digital documents are structured by elements, but not formatted. In other words, individual areas in documents that are to be distributed over the Internet receive their significance. In a universally valid language, it is possible to define, for example, which text sections of a page are displayed as headings, subheadings, lists, or separated by line breaks. The respective element text parts are marked by tags at the beginning and end. This means that an HTML command can only be adopted by the browser that represents the documents and thereby the markup language if it consists of a tag at the beginning and end. The closing tag is defined by a preceding slash.

Some examples of HTML elements

Document type declaration: <html> Document </html>

HTML Head (in English head, e.g., specification of meta-information): <head> Content </head>

First-order heading (in English heading): <h1> Heading </h1>

Line break (in English break): <br> Content </br>

Bold text (in English bold): <b>Word</b>

Work with HTML in practice

The markup language is continuously developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). Currently (since October 2014), HTML5 is supported, which all well-known browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox can handle. The commands are written into the source code using a text editor to structure a webpage or individual page. The design of text content (headings, line breaks, links, etc.) of a website can usually be done within the Content Management System (CMS). To simplify usage, many CMS allow editing through functional buttons (similar to regular text editing programs like Word and Libre Writer). Alternatively, you can switch to HTML view within a web document, which allows the input of the corresponding tag commands and the design of HTML elements. This is the HTML code or the source code. In this way, website texts can be designed without requiring specific knowledge.

Incidentally, there is also the option to include CSS in HTML through so-called stylesheets. With internal stylesheets, the CSS directive is located directly in the HTML document. This allows color, font, layout, and more to be edited in an element.