The World Wide Web is a collection of documents on computers around the world that are connected together via telephone lines, broadband cable, and fiber optic networks. Your computer uses a modem and special software called a browser (such as Netscape Navigator™ or Internet Explorer™) to call other computers and request documents. The other computer then sends the document to your computer and your browser displays it. The process of obtaining a document from another computer and putting it on yours is called "downloading."
Almost all of the documents that exist on the web are written in a special language called HTML.
The letters HTML stand for HyperText Markup Language. HyperText is a kind of text that can be linked to other pieces of text. It is used in many types of electronic documents, especially for things such as cross-referencing in multimedia encyclopedias. The Markup part of the language consists of tags which tell the browser software how to display information. A tag is a small bit of text within < and > punctuation.
HTML documents can be written in any text program. The basic one that we will use is Apple's Simple Text. HTML documents are saved as normal files but you include a suffix of .html, i.e., filename.html. (Please note: the suffix .htm is also acceptable to allow for compatibility with DOS based Wintel servers).
A start tag tells a browser where to begin a certain type of formatting. It is the text within the < and > marks, i.e., <TAG>.
An end tag tells the browser where to stop formatting and looks just like a start tag but with a forward slash (/)before the text, i.e., </TAG>.
As an example, <I> is the tag which is used to italicize text, thus if you have:
<I>This text is italicized.</I>
in a browser it looks like this:
This text is italicized.