What Is HTML?
A webpage is just a document — and HTML is how you write it
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. That sounds intimidating. It isn't. A webpage is just a document — like a Word document — and HTML is the language you use to write it. If you've ever used Microsoft Word, you already know the concepts. You just haven't written them in HTML syntax yet.
The Word document analogy
- Word: Heading 1 style — HTML: <h1>Your Title Here</h1>
- Word: Normal/Body text paragraph — HTML: <p>Your paragraph text here.</p>
- Word: Bold button (Ctrl+B) — HTML: <strong>bold text</strong>
- Word: Insert Bullet List — HTML: <ul><li>Item one</li><li>Item two</li></ul>
- Word: Insert Hyperlink — HTML: <a href="https://...">Link text</a>
- Word: Insert Image — HTML: <img src="photo.jpg" alt="description">
A webpage is a Word document that a browser displays
When you create a Word document, you type text, format it with heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Body Text), add bullet lists, insert images, and insert hyperlinks. A webpage does all of the same things. HTML is just the instruction sheet that tells the browser: "this text is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a bullet list", "this is an image". The browser is like Word — it reads your instructions and displays them on screen.
Why angle brackets?
In Word, you format text by selecting it and clicking a button. The formatting is hidden — you don't see the instructions, you just see the result. HTML makes the instructions visible. Instead of clicking Bold, you type <strong>around the text you want bold</strong>. The angle brackets < > are just a way of saying "this is an instruction, not content to display."
You can view the HTML of any webpage
Right-click any webpage and choose "View Page Source" (or press Ctrl+U). You'll see the raw HTML that created the page. This is how every professional web developer learns — by looking at how real sites are built. Don't worry if it looks overwhelming; by the end of this course you'll be able to read it.
Try this
Open Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Type this exactly: <h1>Hello World</h1><p>This is my first webpage.</p> — then save the file as index.html. Drag that file into your browser. You've just built a webpage. No tools needed.