- 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
- 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:
- How to Create a Simple Web Page with HTML
- Adding a Head to Your HTML
- Adding a Body and Text to Your HTML
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.
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.
How to Create a Simple Web Page with HTML
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA. Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions.
The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article’s instructions and verified that they work.
This article has been viewed 4,544,656 times.
This wikiHow teaches you how to write a simple web page with HTML (hypertext markup language). HTML is one of the core components of the World Wide Web, making up the structure of web pages. Once you’ve created your web page, you can save it as an HTML document and view it in your web browser. Creating an HTML page is possible using basic text editors found on both Windows and Mac computers.
Adding a Head to Your HTML
Type in and press ↵ Enter . This tells the web browser that this is an HTML document. [1] X Research source
Type in and press ↵ Enter . This is the tag that opens your HTML head. The HTML head information that is not usually displayed on your web page. This information can include, the title, meta data, CSS style sheets, and other scripting languages. [2] X Research source
Type and press ↵ Enter . This is the tag to close your head. Your HTML code should look something like this.
html> head> title>My Web Pagetitle> head>
Adding a Body and Text to Your HTML
Type in below the closed «Head» tag. This tag opens the body of your HTML document. Everything that goes in the HTML body displays on the web page.
Type in . This is the tag to add a heading to your HTML document. A Heading is large bold text that typically goes at the top of your HTML document.
- Add additional headings as you go. There are six different headings that you can create by using the through tags. These create headings of different sizes. For example, to create three different-sized headings in succession, you might write the following:
h1>Welcome to My Page!h1> h2>My name is Bob.h2> h3>I hope you like it here.h3>
Type
. This is the tag to open a paragraph. Paragraph text is used to display normal sized text.
Type some text. This can be a description for your web page or any other information you wish to share.
Type
after your text and press ↵ Enter . This the tag to close your paragraph text. The following is an example of paragraph text in HTML:
- You can add multiple paragraph lines in a row in order to create a series of paragraphs under one heading.
- You can change the color of any text by framing the text with the and tags. Make sure to type your preferred color into the «color» section (you’ll keep the quotes). You can turn any text (e.g., headers) into a different color with this set of tags. For example, to turn a paragraph’s text blue, you would write the following code:
Whales are majestic creatures.
- You can add bolds, italics and other text formats using HTML. The following are examples of how you can format text using HTML tags: [3] X Research source
b>Bold textb> i>Italic texti> u>Underlined textu> sub>Subscript textsub> sup>Superscript textsup>