- HTML Basic Examples
- HTML Documents
- Example
- My First Heading
- The Declaration
- HTML Headings
- Example
- This is heading 1
- This is heading 2
- This is heading 3
- HTML Paragraphs
- Example
- HTML Links
- Example
- HTML Images
- Example
- How to View HTML Source
- View HTML Source Code:
- Inspect an HTML Element:
- HTML Introduction
- What is HTML?
- A Simple HTML Document
- Example
- My First Heading
- Example Explained
- What is an HTML Element?
- Web Browsers
- HTML Page Structure
- This is a heading
- HTML History
HTML Basic Examples
In this chapter we will show some basic HTML examples.
Don’t worry if we use tags you have not learned about yet.
HTML Documents
All HTML documents must start with a document type declaration: .
The HTML document itself begins with and ends with .
The visible part of the HTML document is between
and .Example
My First Heading
My first paragraph.
The Declaration
The declaration represents the document type, and helps browsers to display web pages correctly.
It must only appear once, at the top of the page (before any HTML tags).
The declaration is not case sensitive.
The declaration for HTML5 is:
HTML Headings
HTML headings are defined with the to tags.
defines the most important heading. defines the least important heading:
Example
This is heading 1
This is heading 2
This is heading 3
HTML Paragraphs
HTML paragraphs are defined with the
tag:
Example
This is a paragraph.
This is another paragraph.
HTML Links
HTML links are defined with the tag:
Example
The link’s destination is specified in the href attribute.
Attributes are used to provide additional information about HTML elements.
You will learn more about attributes in a later chapter.
HTML Images
HTML images are defined with the tag.
The source file ( src ), alternative text ( alt ), width , and height are provided as attributes:
Example
How to View HTML Source
Have you ever seen a Web page and wondered «Hey! How did they do that?»
View HTML Source Code:
Right-click in an HTML page and select «View Page Source» (in Chrome) or «View Source» (in Edge), or similar in other browsers. This will open a window containing the HTML source code of the page.
Inspect an HTML Element:
Right-click on an element (or a blank area), and choose «Inspect» or «Inspect Element» to see what elements are made up of (you will see both the HTML and the CSS). You can also edit the HTML or CSS on-the-fly in the Elements or Styles panel that opens.
HTML Introduction
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
My First Heading
My first paragraph.
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:
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:
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:
This is a heading
This is another paragraph.
Note: The content inside the section 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:
Year | Version |
---|---|
1989 | Tim Berners-Lee invented www |
1991 | Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML |
1993 | Dave Raggett drafted HTML+ |
1995 | HTML Working Group defined HTML 2.0 |
1997 | W3C Recommendation: HTML 3.2 |
1999 | W3C Recommendation: HTML 4.01 |
2000 | W3C Recommendation: XHTML 1.0 |
2008 | WHATWG HTML5 First Public Draft |
2012 | WHATWG HTML5 Living Standard |
2014 | W3C Recommendation: HTML5 |
2016 | W3C Candidate Recommendation: HTML 5.1 |
2017 | W3C Recommendation: HTML5.1 2nd Edition |
2017 | W3C Recommendation: HTML5.2 |
This tutorial follows the latest HTML5 standard.