HTML & CSS: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition, 5th Edition

CHAPTER 1 Traditional HTML and XHTML

Markup languages are ubiquitous in everyday computing. Although you may not realize it, word processing documents are filled with markup directives indicating the structure and often presentation of the document. In the case of traditional word processing documents, these structural and presentational markup codes are more often than not behind the scenes. However, in the case of Web documents, markup in the form of traditional Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and its Extensible Markup Language (XML)-focused variant, XHTML, is a little more obvious. These not-so-behind-the-scenes markup languages are used to inform Web browsers about page structure and, some might argue, presentation as well.

First Look at ...