HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

HTML enables you to indentify the structure of your content but not the presentational effects ("...look and feel...").

Guides ~ Syntax ~ Special Tags ~ Validation

Guides

What is HTML?: HTML is a simple language, accessible to non-professionals, allowing everyone to make their ideas and opinions available to the world community. Michael H. Kelsey.
Understanding HTML: An outstanding presentation of HTML basics, by an Australian with a fine writing style. Dianne Gorman.
Getting Started with HTML: A primer to Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples, this is a comprehensive and succinct guide to writing standard HTML.

The Web Design Group Reference Section: Excellent background information and technical details on HTML authoring. Web Design Group.
A Beginner's Guide to HTML: A primer for producing documents in HTML, the HyperText Markup Language used on the World Wide Web, by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA.
Designing For The Web: A series of informative articles on Web site design, including A Web Site is a Harsh Mistress & Rules of Thumb. The special focus is on complementing Web design skills with competence in interface design. Don't miss Web Site Design.
HyperText Markup Language: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) home page for HTML. Here you will find pointers to specifications for HTML, guidelines for how to use HTML to the best effect and pointers to related work at W3C. W3C.
Introduction to HTML: Using this tutorial, you can pick up the basics of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in a few short hours. Case Western.
Dan's Web Tips: This huge resource contains a balanced summary review of most of today's important Web authoring topics. Daniel Tobias.

Syntax

World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) Normative References and Recommendations

The following descriptions are quoted directly from WC3's HyperText Markup Language page.

HTML 2.0: HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) was developed by the IETF's HTML working group, which closed in 1996. It set the standard for core HTML features based upon current practise in 1994.
HTML 3.2: W3C's previous recommendation for HTML 3.2 represented the consensus on HTML features for 1996. HTML 3.2 added widely deployed features such as tables, applets and text flow around images, superscripts and subscripts while providing backwards compatibility with the existing HTML 2.0 Standard.
HTML 4.0: W3C's recommendation for the latest version of HTML. It includes support for style sheets, internationalization, accessibility to Web pages for people with disabilities, frames, richer tables and forms.

Note: Although you can still find references to HTML 3.0, it was only a draft; it expired already in 1995. It contained many interesting things, some of which were taken into HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.0. (Jukka Korpela).

Public Interpretations of WC3's Normative HTML References and Recommendations

Introduction to Wilbur: Provides a history of the various HTML common protocols, new tags, and a glance at the future of HTML. Web Design Group.
Acceptable HTML Tags and Usage: A list of HTML 2.0 and 3.0 tags and features that meet the requirements, along with a few pointers about HTML usage.
HTML 2.0 Authoring: A guide to HTML 2.0 elements and their application.
Bare Bones Guide to HTML: An extensive guide to Standard and Netscape HTML tags -- in tables or plain text formats. Kevin Werbach.

Special Tags

Use of ALT Texts in IMGs: Recommendations on the appropriate use of ALT texts in HTML. Alan J. Flavell
Tables on Non-table Browsers: Discusses how to get around problems in tables usage. Alan J. Flavell
Why Frames Suck (Most of The Time): Explains why frames break the unified model of the Web. Jakob Nielsen.
What's Wrong With The FONT Element?: Outlines the insidious effects of Hypertext markup introduced by Netscape. Warren Steel.

Validation

Why Validate Your HTML: Explains why validated HTML documents are a key aspect of Web life.
WDG HTML Validator: This HTML validation service provides custom error messages, with concrete suggestions about how they might have been caused.
W3C HTML Validation Service: This is an easy-to-use HTML validation service based on an SGML parser. It checks HTML documents for compliance with W3C HTML Recommendations and other HTML common protocols and is currently the most effective HTML validator.

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Last update: October 28, 2006