Learn HTML - The Bare Essentials

The Bare Essentials

Although their differences border on the infinite, all Web pages have certain characteristics in common. Specifically, they each begin and end with the same set of HTML tags. In this lesson, we'll learn how to use the tags that represent the bare essentials of HTML:

<html>
<head>
<body>

Every HTML document that you compose should begin with the <html> tag and end with its partner, the </html>tag. You can think of these tags as telling the browser "this here document is written in HTML" and "you've reached the end of this HTML document," respectively.

After the starting <html>, the next tag in your document should be the <head> tag. This tag defines the header portion of your document, which continues until the </head> tag is encountered. Typically, the heading merely contains the title for this particular document.

After the </head> tag, the <body> tag comes next. This tag tells the browser that the body of the document -- where all the action takes place -- follows. The corresponding </body> tag marks the conclusion of the body, and appears right before the </html> tag; thus, it is always the next-to-last tag in your entire document.

Between the <body> and </body> tags, you'll include text, images, links, and all the other HTML tags to convey your message. This is where we'll concentrate our efforts in this course.

To review, consider this diagram, with the HTML source document on the left and the corresponding view from a browser on the right:

Source Document Browser: My First Page

<html>
<head>
<title>my first page</title>
</head>
<body>

I have nothing more to say.
</body>
</html>
I have nothing more to say.

Notice how the browser interprets and strips out all the bare essential HTML, leaving only the body for display.

Every page you create will contain this bare essential HTML. In the next lesson, you'll begin to do so.