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.
|
