HTML Documents
All HTML documents must start with a document type declaration: <!
DOCTYPE html>.
The HTML document itself begins with <html> and ends with </html>.
The visible part of the HTML document is between <body> and </body>.
The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration represents the document type and helps
browsers to display web pages correctly.
It must only appear once, at the top of the page (before any HTML tags).
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration is not case sensitive.
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration for HTML5 is: <!DOCTYPE html>
HTML Headings
HTML headings are defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags.
<h1> defines the most important heading. <h6> defines the least
important heading:
<h1>This is heading 1</h1>
<h2>This is heading 2</h2>
<h3>This is heading 3</h3>
HTML Paragraphs
HTML paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag:
Example
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>
HTML Links
HTML links are defined with the <a> tag:
Example
<a href="[Link] is a link</a>
The link's destination is specified in the href attribute.
Attributes are used to provide additional information about HTML
elements.
You will learn more about attributes in a later chapter.
HTML Images
HTML images are defined with the <img> tag.
The source file (src), alternative text (alt), width, and height are provided
as attributes:
Example
<img src="[Link]" alt="[Link]" width="104" height="14
2">
HTML Elements
An HTML element is defined by a start tag, some content, and an end tag.
HTML Elements
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:
<tagname>Content goes here...</tagname>
Examples of some HTML elements:
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
Nested HTML Elements
HTML elements can be nested (this means that elements can contain
other elements).
All HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.
The following example contains four HTML elements
(<html>, <body>, <h1> and <p>):
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
Example Explained
The <html> element is the root element and it defines the whole HTML
document.
It has a start tag <html> and an end tag </html>.
Then, inside the <html> element there is a <body> element:
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
The <body> element defines the document's body.
It has a start tag <body> and an end tag </body>.
Then, inside the <body> element there are two other
elements: <h1> and <p>:
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
The <h1> element defines a heading.
It has a start tag <h1> and an end tag </h1>:
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
The <p> element defines a paragraph.
It has a start tag <p> and an end tag </p>:
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
Empty HTML Elements
HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.
The <br> tag defines a line break, and is an empty element without a
closing tag:
Example
<p>This is a <br> paragraph with a line break.</p>