Introduction

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) uses a markup system composed of elements which represent specific content. Markup means that with HTML you declare what is presented to a viewer, not how it is presented. Visual representations are defined by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and realized by browsers. Still existing elements that allow for such, like e.g. [font](<https://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/font>), “are entirely obsolete, and must not be used by authors”[1].

HTML is sometimes called a programming language but it has no logic, so is a markup language. HTML tags provide semantic meaning and machine-readability to the content in the page.

An element usually consists of an opening tag (<element_name>), a closing tag (</element_name>), which contain the element’s name surrounded by angle brackets, and the content in between: <element_name>...content...</element_name>

There are some HTML elements that don’t have a closing tag or any contents. These are called void elements. Void elements include <img>, <meta>, <link> and <input>.

Element names can be thought of as descriptive keywords for the content they contain, such as video, audio, table, footer.

A HTML page may consist of potentially hundreds of elements which are then read by a web browser, interpreted and rendered into human readable or audible content on the screen.

For this document it is important to note the difference between elements and tags:

Elements: video, audio, table, footer

Tags: <video>, <audio>, <table>, <footer>, </html>, </body>

Element insight

Let’s break down a tag…

The <p> tag represents a common paragraph.

Elements commonly have an opening tag and a closing tag. The opening tag contains the element’s name in angle brackets (<p>). The closing tag is identical to the opening tag with the addition of a forward slash (/) between the opening bracket and the element’s name (</p>).

Content can then go between these two tags: <p>This is a simple paragraph.</p>.

Creating a simple page

The following HTML example creates a simple “Hello World” web page.

HTML files can be created using any text editor. The files must be saved with a .html or .htm[2] extension in order to be recognized as HTML files.

Once created, this file can be opened in any web browser.