Learn Html: Understanding The Basic Structure

By Author: Timothy Aaron Whiston
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To learn HTML you must first understand the basic structure of this markup language. This article will get you ready to dive right in and start working with HTML to build your own great Website.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the most basic code for formatting Web documents and instructing Web browsers on the display of these documents. HTML components are, in many ways, the building blocks of the Web.

It is not particularly difficult to learn HTML code. In fact I like to say that it is a lot easier than learning to read and write the English language; this gives people a solid reference point and allows them to feel more comfortable moving forward.

To learn HTML effectively, you simply need to look at the process like learning a new, basic language. It is all about memorizing a range of alphanumeric codes and understanding how and where to apply these pieces of code.

HTML Tags

HTML tags are the most basic element of the language. Think of a tag like a single command base that is used to define a particular area of your Web page.

Tags are letters and numbers arranged ...
... within the greater and lesser symbols on your keyboard. For example, here is a body tag:

< BODY >

This tag tells a browser the main body of your Web page will appear below. The above tag is an opening tag, because it signals the start of the BODY section.

At the end of your page body, you would close this tag, thus signaling to the browser that it is finished reading the Web page body. A closing tag includes the trailing slash character like so:

< / BODY >

So you open a particular tag to mark the start of a new area, effect, or behavior. You then close the tag to indicate the end of this area, effect, or behavior.

This is all really quite simple once you get rolling. Now that you understand how to open and close tags, you just need to learn the HTML that goes inside that tag placements.

There are tags that dictate the start and stop of the document head and body. And there are tags that mark where tables, columns, rows, forms, paragraphs, horizontal lines, images, and links begin and end.
As you learn HTML you will also discover that different tags can be used to begin and end specific behavior for fonts and other elements on your page. Everything in your HTML document starts and stops through the use of tags.

HTML Attributes

You can think of HTML attributes as specific characteristics assigned to a tag. For instance, going back to our body tag above, you may want to use an attribute to create a green page background like so:

< BODY bg=green >

Attributes can be added to any HTML tag in an effort to enhance the basic format and display of the provided code. Attributes often are what create bold text, highlighted text background, row and column width and height, and many other specific effects seen on the page.

Now that you have the basic structure of the HTML language in mind, all you need to do is learn the specific HTML variable. Again, this is easier than memorizing the alphabet so you have more than enough brainpower to take care of the task at hand.
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