Overview
1. What is HTML?HTML is the universal language of the web — a simple, versatile markup language. It allows web page creators to build complex pages that combine text and images, which can be viewed by anyone else on the internet, regardless of what type of computer or browser they are using.
You may have heard of many software programs for editing web pages. In fact, you don't need any specialized software to create an HTML page — all you need is a text editor (such as Microsoft Word, Notepad, WordPad, etc.) and a basic understanding of HTML. You'll soon discover that basic HTML is incredibly easy.
HTML is simply a text file made up of a series of tags. They act like a band conductor, telling the musicians when to pause and when to play with intensity.
HTML tags are usually full English words (e.g., "blockquote") or abbreviations (e.g., "p" for paragraph), but they differ from regular text because they are enclosed in angle brackets. For example, the paragraph tag is `<p>`, and the blockquote tag is `<blockquote>`. Some tags describe how the page should be formatted (e.g., `<p>` starts a new paragraph), others define how text is displayed (e.g., `<b>` makes text bold), and still others provide information that is not visible on the page itself — such as titles.
2. HTML Basics
2.1 Tag Rules
One important thing to remember about tags is that they usually come in pairs. Whenever you use a tag — such as `<blockquote>` — you must close it with another tag: `</blockquote>`. Notice the slash before "blockquote" — that's the difference between a closing tag and an opening tag.
A basic HTML page starts with the `<html>` tag and ends with `</html>
