HTML Basics pdf

Hypertext Markup Language, or as it is more commonly known, HTML, is the computer
language at the heart of the World Wide Web. When you create a Web site, you use HTML
to put the text, pictures, animations, and perhaps video and sound onto the individual Web pages that
make up the site. In addition, HTML lets you insert hypertext links and interactive buttons that connect
your Web pages to other pages on your Web site and on other Web sites around the world. Web design

is a creative process, and HTML is simply one of the tools (the page description language) you use to
produce Web pages.
HTML is a text markup and not a programming language. In theory, a Web page you create using
HTML should be viewable by anyone with a computer, any Web browser, and access to the Internet.
In reality, the ability to view all the content on a Web page depends on the capabilities of your Web
browser. Web browsers are programs that interpret the HTML in Web page documents and display
text, pictures, and animations on the visitor’s computer screen. Either alone or with the help of other
installed programs, browsers also play back any video and sound files you use HTML to insert on
a Web page. The latest versions of the two most popular Web browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer
and Netscape’s Netscape Navigator, can display just about anything you can use HTML to put onto a
Web page.
For visitors to access Web pages on your Web site, they must first connect to the Internet and start
a Web browser. After the Web server sends a Web page to the visitor’s computer, the Web browser
interprets the HTML in the Web page file and displays the file’s contents as text and graphics images
in the browser’s application window.
Web servers and Web browsers use the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) to communicate.
Among other things, the HTTP protocol specifies both the way in which Web browsers and servers
send messages and the structure of the messages themselves. A thorough discussion of the various
HTTP message types and structures is beyond the scope of this book. However, to design and create
even complex Web sites, you need only a basic understanding of the HTTP request and response stream
(between Web browser and Web server) illustrated in Figure 1-1.