Building a Web Site For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Tagging Along with HTML

Web pages are built primarily by writing instructions in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML is a simple programming language; its main aim is to tell a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, how a Web page should look on-screen. What I cover in this chapter is the bare minimum that you need to know to create Web pages and link them to make a Web site. If you’re interested in going deeper into HTML, check out HTML 4 For Dummies, 5th edition, by Ed Tittel and Mary Burmeister (Wiley Publishing).

You can find the HTML 4.01 specification at www.w3.org/TR/html401.

HTML is composed of elements. A paragraph or an image, for example, is an element. Elements, in turn, are composed of tags, attributes, and — sometimes — content. Here’s a little more information about each of those:

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Tags: A tag is a simple descriptive term that tells a Web browser what element it’s dealing with. Start tag: The beginning of each element is shown by the name of that element within angle braces; this is called a start tag. The start tag for a paragraph, for example, is <P>; for an image, it’s <IMG>. End tag: The end of an element is shown by the end tag, which is just like the start tag except that the end tag has a slash before the element’s name. The end tag for a paragraph, therefore, is </P>. Some elements, such as IMG, don’t have end tags.

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Attributes: An attribute is ...