What is meant by hypertext markup language?

What Does Hypertext Markup Language [HTML] Mean?

Hypertext markup language [HTML] is the major markup language used to display Web pages on the Internet. In other words, Web pages are composed of HTML, which is used to display text, images or other resources through a Web browser.

All HTML is plain text, meaning it is not compiled and may be read by humans. The file extension for an HTML file is .htm or .html.

Techopedia Explains Hypertext Markup Language [HTML]

New Web developers may mistake HTML for a programming language when it is actually a markup language. HTML is used with other technologies because all HTML really does is organize documents. On the client side, JavaScript [JS] is used to provide interactivity. On the server side, a Web development platform like Ruby, PHP or ASP.NET is used.

When a Web developer builds an application, the work is performed on the server, and raw HTML is sent out to the user. The line between server-side development and client side development is blurry with technologies like AJAX.

HTML was never designed for the Web that exists today, as it is just a markup language with severe limitations, in terms of control and design. Numerous technologies have been used to work around this issue - the most significant being cascading style sheet [CSS].

The long term solution is [or hopefully will be] HTML5, which is the next generation of HTML and allows for more control and interactivity. As with any development on the Web, the move to standards is a slow and arduous process, and Web developers and designers have to make due with current and supported technologies, which means that basic HTML will continue to be used for some time.

HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages.

What is HTML?

• HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
• HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages
• HTML describes the structure of a Web page
• HTML consists of a series of elements
• HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content
• HTML elements label pieces of content such as "this is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a link", etc.

A Simple HTML Document

Example

Page Title

My First Heading

My first paragraph.

Try it Yourself »

Example Explained

• The declaration defines that this document is an HTML5 document
• The element is the root element of an HTML page
• The element contains meta information about the HTML page
• The element specifies a title for the HTML page [which is shown in the browser's title bar or in the page's tab]
• The element defines the document's body, and is a container for all the visible contents, such as headings, paragraphs, images, hyperlinks, tables, lists, etc.
• The

  element defines a large heading

• The

  element defines a paragraph

What is an HTML Element?

An HTML element is defined by a start tag, some content, and an end tag:

Content goes here...

The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:

My First Heading

My first paragraph.

Note: Some HTML elements have no content [like the
element]. These elements are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag!

Web Browsers

The purpose of a web browser [Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari] is to read HTML documents and display them correctly.

A browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to display the document:

HTML Page Structure

Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

Page title

This is a heading

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

Note: The content inside the section [the white area above] will be displayed in a browser. The content inside the element will be shown in the browser's title bar or in the page's tab.

HTML History

Since the early days of the World Wide Web, there have been many versions of HTML:

This tutorial follows the latest HTML5 standard.

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