HTML

2021-10-17

Abbreviation: hypertext markup language

A file format for text documents. As you use the web, your browser downloads content in this format, interprets it, and presents you with a web page.

What’s hypertext? Basically, text with links to other text.
As can be seen by opening it in a text editor, the HTML of a page generally contains its readable text content. Additionally, it contains markup. This is extra information about the content’s structure, meaning, and functionality.
It’s a computer language. There are specific rules that define valid HTML. It can be written and read by human beings. In practice, it’s mostly computer-generated — human authors write things with tools like WordPress which, operated properly, create the appropriate additional markup on our behalf.

Examples

<h1>Definition list</h1>
<p>Let me clear up a few things.</p>
<div class="tree"></div>
<hr />

The HTML for this page. (Right click, view source.)