NWE Help: Web: Authoring: HTML: Elements and Tags

NWE Home :: Help :: Web :: Authoring :: HTML

The primary codes of HTML are the tags. Some tags have required matching end tags. Each tag, along with its end tag (if it has one) and intervening text or other material, defines an element of the document. The elements include things like paragraphs, lists, anchors, blockquotes, and so on. Here are some examples of tags:

  
        <CENTER>
        <IMG SRC="mike.gif">
        </CENTER>

(NOTE: We do not expect you to understand what these tags do, yet.)

Many tags have added optional specifications called attributes. It's the attributes that give the web author power over certain presentational features. Some tags have required attributes. In the example above, the <IMG> tag requires a SRC attribute. In formal terms, the tags simply describe the document -- "this is a head," "this is a paragraph," "this is a list," and so on. The attributes and the values you specify for them allow a certain amount of control over how items are displayed -- "center this head," "justify the paragraph," "number this list."

HTML tags are always enclosed in angle brackets (<>), and any attributes come after the initial tag. The codes (both tags and attributes) may appear in either upper- or lowercase.

Back: Introduction
Next: Skeleton