Web Crackers : Learn Basic HTML Part 1

What is HTML?

HTML is a markup language for describing web documents (web pages).

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
A markup language is a set of markup tags
HTML documents are described by HTML tags
Each HTML tag describes different document content.

Example Explained

The DOCTYPE declaration defines the document type to be HTML
The text between <html> and </html> describes an HTML document
The text between <head> and </head> provides information about the document
The text between <title> and </title> provides a title for the document
The text between <body> and </body> describes the visible page content

HTML Tags

HTML tags are keywords (tag names) surrounded by angle brackets:

<tagname>content</tagname>

HTML tags normally come in pairs like and
The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
The end tag is written like the start tag, but with a slash before the tag name

Note : The start tag is often called the opening tag. The end tag is often called the closing tag.

Web Browsers

The purpose of a web browser (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari) is to read HTML documents and display them.

The browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to display the document:

Note : Only the <body> area (the white area) is displayed by the browser.

HTML Versions

Since the early days of the web, there have been many versions of HTML:

Version Year

HTML 1991

HTML 2.0 1995

HTML 3.2 1997

HTML 4.01 2000

HTML 5 2014

Write HTML Using Notepad or TextEdit

HTML can be edited by using professional HTML editors like:

Microsoft WebMatrix
Sublime Text

However, for learning HTML we recommend a text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac).

We believe using a simple text editor is a good way to learn HTML.

Follow the 4 steps below to create your first web page with Notepad.

Step 1: Open Notepad

To open Notepad in Windows 7 or earlier:
Click Start (bottom left on your screen). Click All Programs. Click Accessories. Click Notepad.
To open Notepad in Windows 8 or later:
Open the Start Screen (the window symbol at the bottom left on your screen). Type Notepad.

Step 2: Write Some HTML

Write or copy some HTML into Notepad.

Step 3: Save the HTML Page

Save the file on your computer.
Select File > Save as in the Notepad menu.
Name the file "index.html" or any other name ending with html or htm.
UTF-8 is the preferred encoding for HTML files.
ANSI encoding covers US and Western European characters only.

Note : You can use either .htm or .html as file extension. There is no difference, it is up to you.

Step 4: View HTML Page in Your Browser

Open the saved HTML file in your favorite browser.

Note : To open a file in a browser, double click on the file, or right-click, and choose open with.

Empty HTML Elements

HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.
is an empty element without a closing tag (the tag defines a line break).
Empty elements can be "closed" in the opening tag like this: .
HTML5 does not require empty elements to be closed. But if you want stricter validation, or you need to make your document readable by XML parsers, you should close all HTML elements.

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Programs Code

Web Page#1: structure.html

Object: Demonstration of Basic Structure of an HTML Document

Source Code