Hypertext Markup Language is the foundation
of World Wide Web. The web is a gigantic storehouse
of information written in billions of interconnected
pages. The pages are written using the language HTML.
HTML documents are ASCII files with embedded codes
for logical markup, format (text styles, document
titles, paragraphs, tables) and hyperlinks. Browsers
(Netscape, Internet Explorers etc.) can read and interpret
HTML codes. HTML is not a programming language but
a mark-up language that anyone without software background
can master in days.
A working knowledge of HTML is necessary
for taking maximum advantage from your website. You
may not be designing your website, but a working knowledge
will help you communicate with your designer in same
frequency and achieve what you wanted to achieve fast
with maximum ease.
The secret behind HTML is that there
is no secret ! Everything's out in the open in an
HTML document. To test this, visit any webpage and
click View>Source in your browser. You will be
able to see underlying HTML code for the webpage.
HTML is made up of two key concepts:
-
Hypertext: A way of creating multimedia
documents and a method for providing links within
and between documents.
-
Markup Language: A method for embedding
special tags that describe the structure as well
as the behaviour of a document
One can create simple HTML pages using
any text editor (Windows Notepad, Wordpad etc. but
NOT MS Word). For complicated pages there are excellent
software like Frontpage, HotMetal etc. that create
HTML codes.
The simplicity and power of HTML lets
anyone create web documents for private or public
use. The power of hypertext, with its built-in support
for multimedia and document links, creates the threads
that compose the worldwide web with its billions of
interconnected pages. Mark-up allows flexible and
aesthetic display of text and graphics that make reading
that much pleasure. The bottomline, you have an incredibly
powerful medium to reach out to your target audience,
a medium that is much more powerful than print and
moves in a borderless world.
Next week we shall discuss selected
web resources that help you master HTML in no time
even if you do not have any computer background.
