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Hoover Digital Media Learning Platform

What is HTML?

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language used to structure content on the web. Every page you have ever visited on the internet started with HTML.

What HTML does

Section titled “What HTML does”

HTML describes what things are. It tells the browser that a piece of text is a heading, that another piece is a paragraph, and that a particular image should appear here. The browser then knows how to present each type of content correctly.

HTML structures:

  • Headings and paragraphs
  • Links and images
  • Lists and tables
  • Forms and buttons
  • Sections and regions of the page

What HTML does not do

Section titled “What HTML does not do”

HTML is only about structure and meaning. Two other languages handle the rest:

  • CSS controls how things look — colors, fonts, layout, spacing
  • JavaScript controls behavior — what happens when a user clicks a button, submits a form, or scrolls the page

The three work together on every modern website, but they have completely separate jobs. In this course, you will learn HTML. CSS Foundations and JavaScript Foundations come after.

An example

Section titled “An example”

Here is a simple piece of HTML:

<h1>Welcome to Summit Trail Outfitters</h1>
<p>We offer guided hiking tours across the Pacific Northwest.</p>
<a href="tours.html">See our tours</a>

The browser reads this and knows: the first line is a main heading, the second is a paragraph, and the third is a link. It does not know what color they are, how large they should be, or whether the link opens in a new tab — those are CSS and JavaScript’s jobs.

Exercise

Section titled “Exercise”

Open any website, right-click anywhere on the page, and choose View Page Source.

You are looking at the raw HTML file the browser downloaded. You will see a lot of angle-bracket tags — those are HTML elements. Do not worry about understanding all of it yet. What you should notice:

  • Tags like <h1>, <p>, <a>, and <img> appear throughout
  • There is a <head> section near the top with no visible text
  • The visible content of the page is inside a <body> section

That structure — head and body — is what every lesson in this module builds toward.

Recap

Section titled “Recap”
  • HTML structures the content of a web page — it describes what things are.
  • CSS controls appearance; JavaScript controls behavior. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are separate but work together.
  • Everything in an HTML page is made of elements, written as tags inside angle brackets.
  • Browsers read HTML and use it to decide how to display each piece of content.

Lesson 02 walks through installing the tools you will use throughout this course.