So
why learn HTML? Some basic knowledge of HTML, at a minimum, will
allow you to understand how web pages are constructed. It will also allow
to understand the limitations of your browser (i.e. why the page doesn't
look exactly the way I expect).
Is HTML hard to learn? Not at all.
Contrary to popular opinion, HTML is not a computer programming language.
It is a document mark up language. There is a big difference. No knowledge
of programming is necessary. HTML is designed to specify how text and
images are displayed or "rendered" on your computer screen.
HTML documents are generally viewed through a program called a browser.
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer are both browsers.
A Simple Example
Lets start with a simple example. In order to create this
example you will need to use a text editor such as notepad (in Windows)
or simple text (MacIntosh). Cut and paste the following into your text
editor.
<html>
<head>
<title> My First Webpage </title>
</head>
</html>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
<b> My First HTML Document ! </b>
</body>
Save the text file as testsite.htm . Double click on the page and the
following should appear in your browser:
My First HTML Document !
As you can see from the above example, html consists of some text surrounded
by < > and some loose text. The text between the < > is
called a tag. A pair of tags is used to "markup" or describe
some characteristic about the text or image between them. For example
the <b> and </b> that surrounds My First HTML Document !
tells your browser to render this text as bold. If you replace the <b>
My First HTML Document ! <b> with <i> My First HTML Document
<i>, re-save the fill and re-open your browser, then you will
see the following italicized text:
My First HTML Document !
In addition, you can nest tags pairs so that if you wanted both bold
and italic text all you would have to do is change the tags to <i><b>My
First HTML Document ! </b><i> which would display:
My First HTML Document !
Basic Structure of An HTML Document
Notice that in the above example the HTML document is divided into two
sections.These are the head and the body. The head is surrounded by
<head> </head> tags and the body is surrounded by the <body>
</body>.
The head section defines certain document wide characteristics. These
are not displayed on the page. In the above example the <title>
My First Web Page </title> creates a title for the page called:
My First Web Page. This is not displayed on the page. However it is
displayed in the top of the browser window. In addition, it is the title
that the search engines use to list your page. It is also the title
that appears in your favorites or bookmarks.
The text between the <body></body> constitute what will appear
on your web page. Again, this area consist of text that is actually
rendered and tag pairs that describe to your browser how to render the
tag. We have already learned how to make text bold and italic. The next
section will describe some other common and useful tags.
Next:
More Basic Text Modifying Tags 
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