{Tutorial}HTML Elements.Step 4.

MrHotFire · December 8, 2012

HTML Elements

An HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:

Start tag * 	Element content 	End tag *
<p> 	This is a paragraph 	</p>
<a href="default.htm"> 	This is a link 	</a>
<br>

* The start tag is often called the opening tag. The end tag is often called the closing tag.

HTML Element Syntax

An HTML element starts with a start tag / opening tag

An HTML element ends with an end tag / closing tag

The element content is everything between the start and the end tag

Some HTML elements have empty content

Empty elements are closed in the start tag

Most HTML elements can have attributes

Tip: You will learn about attributes in the next chapter of this tutorial.

Nested HTML Elements

Most HTML elements can be nested (can contain other HTML elements).

HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

HTML Document Example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>
</body>

</html>

The example above contains 3 HTML elements.

HTML Example Explained

The element:

<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>

The element defines a paragraph in the HTML document.

The element has a start tag and an end tag .

The element content is: This is my first paragraph.

The <body> element:

<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>
</body>

The <body> element defines the body of the HTML document.

The element has a start tag <body> and an end tag </body>.

The element content is another HTML element (a p element).

The <html> element:

<html>

<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>
</body>

</html>

The <html> element defines the whole HTML document.

The element has a start tag <html> and an end tag </html>.

The element content is another HTML element (the body element).

Don't Forget the End Tag

Some HTML elements might display correctly even if you forget the end tag:

<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is a paragraph

The example above works in most browsers, because the closing tag is considered optional.

Never rely on this. Many HTML elements will produce unexpected results and/or errors if you forget the end tag .

Empty HTML Elements

HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.

is an empty element without a closing tag (the tag defines a line break).

Tip: In XHTML, all elements must be closed. Adding a slash inside the start tag, like , is the proper way of closing empty elements in XHTML (and XML).

HTML Tip: Use Lowercase Tags

HTML tags are not case sensitive: means the same as . Many web sites use uppercase HTML tags.

Credits:Olympus,Internet,ME.

{Tutorial}HTML Elements.Step 4.

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