HTML - Getting Started

What You Need

You don't need any tools to learn HTML at W3Schools.

* You don't need an HTML editor
* You don't need a web server
* You don't need a web site

Editing HTML

In this tutorial we use a plain text editor (like Notepad) to edit HTML. We believe this is the best way to learn HTML.

However, professional web developers often prefer HTML editors like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, instead of writing plain text.
Create Your Own Test Web

If you just want to learn HTML, skip the rest of this chapter.

If you want to create a test page on your own computer, just copy the 3 files below to your desktop.

(Right click on each link, and select "save target as" or "save link as")

mainpage.htm

page1.htm

page2.htm

After you have copied the files, you can double-click on the file called "mainpage.htm" and see your first web site in action.
Use Your Test Web For Learning

We suggest you experiment with everything you learn at W3Schools by editing your web files with a text editor (like Notepad).

Note: If your test web contains HTML markup tags you have not learned, don't panic. You will learn all about it in the next chapters.
.HTM or .HTML File Extension?

When you save an HTML file, you can use either the .htm or the .html file extension. We use .htm in our examples. It is a habit from the past, when the software only allowed three letters in file extensions.

With new software it is perfectly safe to use .html.

HTML Introduce

What is HTML?

HTML is a language for describing web pages.

* HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
* HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language
* A markup language is a set of markup tags
* HTML uses markup tags to describe web pages

HTML Tags

HTML markup tags are usually called HTML tags

* HTML tags are keywords surrounded by angle brackets like
* HTML tags normally come in pairs like and
* The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
* Start and end tags are also called opening tags and closing tags

HTML Documents = Web Pages

* HTML documents describe web pages
* HTML documents contain HTML tags and plain text
* HTML documents are also called web pages
Example Explained

* The text between and describes the web page
* The text between and is the visible page content
* The text between

and

is displayed as a heading
* The text between

and

is displayed as a paragraph