HTML Tags

HTML tags are used to create the construction of your web pages and are used to communicate with the browser; these tags determine how your web pages are displayed within the browser.

Most HTML tags consist of an opening and closing angle bracket, the command falls within the brackets, for example the opening tag to create a paragraph would be <P> (the letter p being the command to start a paragraph.

Most HTML tags must have a closing tag to end the command, very similar to the opening tag only one symbol tells the browser to end the command, this symbol is forward slash and should always be used immediately after the opening angle bracket of the closing tag, for example to close out paragraph or tag would look like the following </p>

HTML Exceptions to the rule

Some HTML tags do not require a closing tag as they immediately close themselves; they are immediately recognised when using an HTML editor.  A few examples are the break tag <br  /> and the horizontal rule tag <hr  />

When using an HTML editor the program helps with the automatic closing of tags, if you have opened a <p> paragraph tag and have finished your paragraph, on closing the tag you are only required to type in the open angel bracket and forward slash “</”, the editor automatically recognises what tag you wish to close preceding back to the last tag opened <p>, so the editor will automatically place the rest of the tag for you P>.  This is very useful to recognise and tags you may not have closed during the construction of your pages.

HTML Editors

Many advanced web designers whom are experts using HTML as a mark-up language are able to create webpages in basic text editors such as WordPad or even notepad.

However, the leading HTML editor in its field is Adobe Dreamweaver (formerly Macromedia Dreamweaver).  Dreamweaver allows the user to create websites with very little or no knowledge of the mark-up languages.