Introduction to HTML

This section provides an introduction to HTML, to help you learn enough to begin writing and maintaining your own websites. Rather than simply listing the various HTML tags and attributes, this section explains how they're used, so that you can then apply them to your own website.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language that's used to write web pages. The word hypertext in the name refers to the ability for one HTML document to link to another, so that the second document is opened when that link is clicked. The word markup means that HTML is a set of instructions which describe the structure and formatting of the contents of a web page (so the content of the web page is "marked up" by adding this formatting information, which describes how the content should be displayed).

You don't need any special tools to write HTML - any basic text editor (Notepad, Wordpad etc.) will do. You can simply write your HTML as plain text, and save it with the file extension .htm or .html.

Since HTML is well-structured and intuitive, you can pick up the basics quickly and easily. It's also very easy to experiment, since all you need is a text editor and a browser to view the results. So once you have a grasp of the basics, the best way to learn more is through trial and error.