• What is HTML:
  
  HTML stands for Hyper-Text Markup Language. It's a way to format text files so that they can be seen on the World Wide Web. In order for you to visualize HTML documents in an attractive way, there are different programs called web browsers, the two most widely used of which are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer.
  
  HTML documents are text files that can be written in any text editor (most commonly, Notepad on a Windows computer, and SimpleText on a Macintosh). For more information on text editors, select HTML Resources.

• Tags:
  
  HTML is composed by means of tags, which change or mark the elements contained in them.
  HTML tags have the following basic structure: a left angle bracket <, a name, and a right angle bracket >. For example:

This tag <P> indicates the beginning of a new paragraph.

Many HTML tags have to be in pairs; that is, you have to close the tag by including a slash / in the tag right after the left angle bracket <. For example:

These tags make the word "little" appear in bold type: <B>little</B>house

It is very important to keep an eye on your closing tags, because if you don't close them properly they will unpredictably change the structure or the formatting of your document. For example:

If you don't close the paired tag in the above example (if you don't include the / in the second tag: <B>little<B>house), both words, "little" and "house" will show in bold, and most likely the rest of the document.

Except for very specific cases (among them, the character entities; select this link to see how to encode diacritics: Diacritics), HTML tags are not case sensitive. Many people prefer to write them in capital letters, so they can better differentiate in their HTML documents the tags from the actual text.

 

• Uploading the HTMLs:
  
  After you create the HTML document, you or the webmaster of your institution has to install it in a server, so that it can be viewed on the Web.
  
  
  But you don't need to be online to see your final HTML document: you can always open it from your machine, provided that you have the browser set up locally, that is, actually running in the computer you are using, or available through your institution's network.