Elements in HTML Documents


The HTML instructions, along with the text to which the instructions apply, are called an HTML element. The HTML instructions are in turn called tags, and look like <element_name> -- that is, they are simply the element name surrounded by left and right angle brackets.

Most elements mark blocks of the document for a particular purpose or formatting: the above <element_name> marks the beginning of such a section. The end of this section is then marked by the ending tag </element_name> -- note the leading slash character "/" in front of the element name. End, or stop tags are indicated by this leading slash character.

Example: the heading at the top of this page is an H1 element, (a level 1 heading) which is written as: 

<H1> Elements in HTML </H1>.

Empty Elements

Some elements are empty -- that is, they do not affect a block of the document in some way. These elements do not require an ending tag. An example is the <HR> element, which draws a horizontal line across the page. This element would simply be entered as 
<HR>

Unless otherwise noted, assume all HTML tags mentioned have an associated closing tag.

Upper and Lower Case

Element names are case insensitive. Thus, the the horizontal rule element can be written as any of <hr>, <Hr> or <HR>.
NOTE: It is recommended that you keep all HTML tags in UPPERCASE to easily distinguish them from other parts of the document.

Elements can have Attributes

Many elements can have arguments that pass parameters to the interpreter handling this element. These arguments are called attributes of the element.

Example: consider the element <A>, which marks a region of text as the beginning (or end) of a hypertext link. This element can have several attributes. One of them, HREF, specifies the hypertext document to which the marked piece of text is linked. To specify this in the tag for A you write
<A HREF="http://www.somewhere.com/file.html"> marked text </A>.
where the attribute HREF is assigned the indicated value.

Note: End tags never take attributes -- the attributes to an element are always placed in the start tag.