HTML Tutorial
1. Introduction to HTML
What is an HTML File?
• HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
• An HTML file is a text file containing small markup tags
• The markup tags tell the Web browser how to display the page
• An HTML file must have an htm or html file extension
• An HTML file can be created using a simple text editor
In OSX start TextEdit and change the following preferences: Select (in the preferences window) "Plain text" instead of "Rich text" and then select "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files". This is very important because if you don't do this HTML codes probably won't work.
Type in the following text:
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
</html>
Save the file as "mypage.htm".
Start your Internet browser. Select "Open" (or "Open Page") in the File menu of your browser. A dialog box will appear. Select "Browse" (or "Choose File") and locate the HTML file you just created - "mypage.htm" - select it and click "Open". Now you should see an address in the dialog box, for example "C:\MyDocuments\mypage.htm". Click OK, and the browser will display the page.
Example Explained
The first tag in your HTML document is <html>. This tag tells your browser that this is the start of an HTML document. The last tag in your document is </html>. This tag tells your browser that this is the end of the HTML document.
The text between the <head> tag and the </head> tag is header information. Header information is not displayed in the browser window.
The text between the <title> tags is the title of your document. The title is displayed in your browser's caption.
The text between the <body> tags is the text that will be displayed in your browser.
The text between the <b> and </b> tags will be displayed in a bold font.
HTM or HTML Extension?
When you save an HTML file, you can use either the .htm or the .html extension. We have used .htm in our examples. It might be a bad habit inherited from the past when some of the commonly used software only allowed three letter extensions.
With newer software we think it will be perfectly safe to use .html.
Note on HTML Editors:
You can easily edit HTML files using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor like FrontPage, Claris Home Page, or Adobe PageMill instead of writing your markup tags in a plain text file.
But if you want to be a skillful Web developer, we strongly recommend that you use a plain text editor to learn your primer HTML.
2. HTML Elements
HTML documents are text files made up of HTML elements.
HTML elements are defined using HTML tags.
HTML Tags
• HTML tags are used to mark-up HTML elements
• HTML tags are surrounded by the two characters < and >
• The surrounding characters are called angle brackets
• HTML tags normally come in pairs like <b> and </b>
• The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
• The text between the start and end tags is the element content
• HTML tags are not case sensitive, <b> means the same as <B>
HTML Elements
Remember the HTML example from the previous page:
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
</html>
This is an HTML element:
<b>This text is bold</b>
The HTML element starts with a start tag: <b>
The content of the HTML element is: This text is bold
The HTML element ends with an end tag: </b>
The purpose of the <b> tag is to define an HTML element that should be displayed as bold.
This is also an HTML element:
<body>
This is my first homepage. <b>This text is bold</b>
</body>
This HTML element starts with the start tag <body>, and ends with the end tag </body>.
The purpose of the <body> tag is to define the HTML element that contains the body of the HTML document.
Why do We Use Lowercase Tags?
We have just said that HTML tags are not case sensitive: <B> means the same as <b>. When you surf the Web, you will notice that most tutorials use uppercase HTML tags in their examples. We always use lowercase tags. Why?
If you want to prepare yourself for the next generations of HTML, you should start using lowercase tags. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase tags in their HTML 4 recommendation, and XHTML (the next generation HTML) demands lowercase tags.
Tag Attributes
Tags can have attributes. Attributes can provide additional information about the HTML elements on your page.
This tag defines the body element of your HTML page: <body>. With an added bgcolor attribute, you can tell the browser that the background color of your page should be red, like this: <body bgcolor="red">.
This tag defines an HTML table: <table>. With an added border attribute, you can tell the browser that the table should have no borders: <table border="0">
Attributes always come in name/value pairs like this: name="value".
Attributes are always added to the start tag of an HTML element.
3. Basic HTML Tags
The most important tags in HTML are tags that define headings, paragraphs and line breaks.
The best way to learn HTML is to work with examples. We have created a very nice HTML editor for you. With this editor, you can edit the HTML source code if you like, and click on a test button to view the result.
Headings
Headings are defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags. <h1> defines the largest heading. <h6> defines the smallest heading.
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<h2>This is a heading</h2>
<h3>This is a heading</h3>
<h4>This is a heading</h4>
<h5>This is a heading</h5>
<h6>This is a heading</h6>
HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after a heading.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag.
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>
HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after a paragraph.
Line Breaks
The <br> tag is used when you want to end a line, but don't want to start a new paragraph. The <br> tag forces a line break wherever you place it.
<p>This <br> is a para<br>graph with line breaks</p>
The <br> tag is an empty tag. It has no closing tag.
Comments in HTML
The comment tag is used to insert a comment in the HTML source code. A comment will be ignored by the browser. You can use comments to explain your code, which can help you when you edit the source code at a later date.
<!-- This is a comment -->
Note that you need an exclamation point after the opening bracket, but not before the closing bracket.
Basic Notes - Useful Tips
When you write HTML text, you can never be sure how the text is displayed in another browser. Some people have large computer displays, some have small. The text will be reformatted every time the user resizes his window. Never try to format the text in your editor by adding empty lines and spaces to the text.
HTML will truncate the spaces in your text. Any number of spaces count as one. Some extra information: In HTML a new line counts as one space.
Using empty paragraphs <p> to insert blank lines is a bad habit. Use the <br> tag instead. (But don't use the <br> tag to create lists. Wait until you have learned about HTML lists.)
You might have noticed that paragraphs can be written without the closing tag </p>. Don't rely on it. The next version of HTML will not allow you to skip ANY closing tags.
HTML automatically adds an extra blank line before and after some elements, like before and after a paragraph, and before and after a heading.
We use a horizontal rule (the <hr> tag), to separate the sections in our tutorials.
4. HTML Text Formatting
HTML defines a lot of elements for formatting output, like bold or italic text.
Below are a lot of examples that you can try out yourself:
How to View HTML Source
Have you ever seen a Web page and wondered "How do they do that?"
To find out, simply click on the VIEW option in your browsers toolbar and select SOURCE or PAGE SOURCE. This will open a window that shows you the actual HTML of the page.
Text Formatting Tags
Tag Description
<b> Defines bold text
<big> Defines big text
<em> Defines emphasized text
<i> Defines italic text
<small> Defines small text
<strong> Defines strong text
<sub> Defines subscripted text
<sup> Defines superscripted text
<ins> Defines inserted text
<del> Defines deleted text
<s> Deprecated. Use <del> instead
<strike> Deprecated. Use <del> instead
<u> Deprecated. Use styles instead
"Computer Output" Tags
Tag Description
<code> Defines computer code text
<kbd> Defines keyboard text
<samp> Defines sample computer code
<tt> Defines teletype text
<var> Defines a variable
<pre> Defines preformatted text
<listing> Deprecated. Use <pre> instead
<plaintext> Deprecated. Use <pre> instead
<xmp> Deprecated. Use <pre> instead
Citations, Quotations, and Definition Tags
Tag Description
<abbr> Defines an abbreviation
<acronym> Defines an acronym
<address> Defines an address element
<bdo> Defines the text direction
<blockquote> Defines a long quotation
<q> Defines a short quotation
<cite> Defines a citation
<dfn> Defines a definition term
Computer Joke
Customer: I don't have a '7' key.
Support: It's between the '6' and '8' key.
Customer: I don't have a '7' key.
Support: Do you see the '1' key?
Customer: Yes.
Support: What's to the right of that?
Customer: '2'
Support: And further right?
Customer: '3', '4', '5', '6'
Support: What's the next key?
Customer: '8'
Support: It should be to the left of the '8'
Customer: Oh, that '7' key?
5. HTML Character Entities
Some characters like the < character, have a special meaning in HTML, and therefore cannot be used in the text.
To display a less than sign (<) in HTML, we have to use a character entity.
Character Entities
Some characters have a special meaning in HTML, like the less than sign (<) that defines the start of an HTML tag. If we want the browser to actually display these characters we must insert character entities in the HTML source.
A character entity has three parts: an ampersand (&), an entity name or a # and an entity number, and finally a semicolon (.
To display a less than sign in an HTML document we must write: < or <
The advantage of using a name instead of a number is that a name is easier to remember. The disadvantage is that not all browsers support the newest entity names, while the support for entity numbers is very good in almost all browsers.
Note that the entities are case sensitive.
Non-breaking Space
The most common character entity in HTML is the non-breaking space.
Normally HTML will truncate spaces in your text. If you write 10 spaces in your text HTML will remove 9 of them. To add spaces to your text, use the character entity.
The Most Common Character Entities:
Result Description Entity Name Entity Number
non-breaking space
< less than < <
> greater than > >
& ampersand & &
" quotation mark " "
' apostrophe ' (does not work in IE) '
Some Other Commonly Used Character Entities:
Result Description Entity Name Entity Number
¢ cent ¢ ¢
£ pound £ £
¥ yen ¥ ¥
§ section § §
© copyright © ©
® registered trademark ® ®
× multiplication × ×
÷ division ÷ ÷
6. HTML Links
HTML uses a hyperlink to link to another document on the Web.
The Anchor Tag and the Href Attribute
HTML uses the <a> (anchor) tag to create a link to another document.
An anchor can point to any resource on the Web: an HTML page, an image, a sound file, a movie, etc.
The syntax of creating an anchor:
<a href="url">Text to be displayed</a>
The <a> tag is used to create an anchor to link from, the href attribute is used to address the document to link to, and the words between the open and close of the anchor tag will be displayed as a hyperlink.
This anchor defines a link to Punjabi-boy:
<a href="http://www.Punjabi-boy.tk/">Visit Punjabi-Boy!</a>
The Target Attribute
With the target attribute, you can define where the linked document will be opened.
The line below will open the document in a new browser window:
<a href="http://www.Punjabi-boy.tk/"
target="_blank">Visit Punjabi-boy!</a>
The Anchor Tag and the Name Attribute
The name attribute is used to create a named anchor. When using named anchors we can create links that can jump directly into a specific section on a page, instead of letting the user scroll around to find what he/she is looking for.
Below is the syntax of a named anchor:
<a name="label">Text to be displayed</a>
The name attribute is used to create a named anchor. The name of the anchor can be any text you care to use.
The line below defines a named anchor:
<a name="tips">Useful Tips Section</a>
You should notice that a named anchor is not displayed in a special way.
To link directly to the "tips" section, add a # sign and the name of the anchor to the end of a URL, like this:
<a href="http://www.punjabi-boy.tk/html_links.asp#tips">
Jump to the Useful Tips Section</a>
A hyperlink to the Useful Tips Section from WITHIN the file "html_links.asp" will look like this:
<a href="#tips">Jump to the Useful Tips Section</a>
HTML Tutorials 
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