HTML Tutorial

Welcome to the Learn Code with Kali HTML tutorial. This comprehensive guide will teach you everything you need to know about HTML, from basic tags to advanced concepts.

1. HTML – Overview

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it is the most widely used language to write Web Pages.

Hypertext refers to the way in which Web pages (HTML documents) are linked together. Thus, the link available on a webpage is called Hypertext.
As its name suggests, HTML is a Markup Language which means you use HTML to simply "mark-up" a text document with tags that tell a Web browser how to structure it to display.

Originally, HTML was developed with the intent of defining the structure of documents like headings, paragraphs, lists, and so forth to facilitate the sharing of scientific information between researchers.

Now, HTML is being widely used to format web pages with the help of different tags available in HTML language.

Basic HTML Document

In its simplest form, following is an example of an HTML document:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>This is document title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>Document content goes here......</p>
</body>
</html>

Save this code in an HTML file test.html using your favorite text editor. Finally open it using a web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge. It will show the following output:

This is a heading

Document content goes here......

HTML Tags

HTML is a markup language and makes use of various tags to format the content. These tags are enclosed within angle braces <Tag Name>. Except few tags, most of the tags have their corresponding closing tags. For example, <html> has its closing tag </html> and <body> tag has its closing tag </body> tag etc.

The example above uses the following tags:

Tag	Description
<!DOCTYPE...>	This tag defines the document type and HTML version.
<html>	This tag encloses the complete HTML document.
<head>	This tag represents the document's header which can keep other HTML tags like <title>, <link> etc.
<title>	The <title> tag is used inside the <head> tag to mention the document title.
<body>	This tag represents the document's body which keeps other HTML tags like <h1>, <div>, <p> etc.
<h1>	This tag represents the heading.
<p>	This tag represents a paragraph.

To learn HTML, you will need to study various tags and understand how they behave while formatting a textual document. Learning HTML is simple as users have to learn the usage of different tags in order to format the text or images to make a beautiful webpage.

Note: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends to use lowercase tags starting from HTML 4.

HTML Document Structure

A typical HTML document will have the following structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
    Document header related tags
    </head>

    <body>
    Document body related tags
    </body>
</html>

The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration

The <!DOCTYPE> declaration tag is used by the web browser to understand the version of the HTML used in the document. Current version of HTML is 5 and it makes use of the following declaration:

<!DOCTYPE html>

There are many other declaration types which can be used in HTML document depending on what version of HTML is being used.

2. HTML – Basic Tags

Heading Tags

Any document starts with a heading. You can use different sizes for your headings. HTML has six levels of headings, which use the elements <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>. While displaying any heading, browser adds one line before and one line after that heading.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Heading Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is heading 1</h1>
<h2>This is heading 2</h2>
<h3>This is heading 3</h3>
<h4>This is heading 4</h4>
<h5>This is heading 5</h5>
<h6>This is heading 6</h6>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This is heading 1

This is heading 2

This is heading 3

This is heading 4

This is heading 5

This is heading 6

Paragraph Tag

The <p> tag offers a way to structure your text into different paragraphs. Each paragraph of text should go in between an opening <p> and a closing </p> tag.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Paragraph Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Here is a first paragraph of text.</p>
<p>Here is a second paragraph of text.</p>
<p>Here is a third paragraph of text.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Here is a first paragraph of text.

Here is a second paragraph of text.

Here is a third paragraph of text.

Line Break Tag

Whenever you use the <br /> element, anything following it starts from the next line. This tag is an example of an empty element, where you do not need opening and closing tags, as there is nothing to go in between them.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Line Break Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello<br />
You delivered your assignment on time.<br />
Thanks<br />
Kali</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Hello
You delivered your assignment on time.
Thanks
Kali

Note: The <br /> tag has a space between the characters br and the forward slash. If you omit this space, older browsers will have trouble rendering the line break.

Centering Content

You can use <center> tag to put any content in the center of the page or any table cell.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Centering Content Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This text is not in the center.</p>
<center>
<p>This text is in the center.</p>
</center>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This text is not in the center.

This text is in the center.

Note: The <center> tag is deprecated in HTML5. Use CSS instead for centering content.

Horizontal Lines

Horizontal lines are used to visually break-up sections of a document. The <hr> tag creates a line from the current position in the document to the right margin and breaks the line accordingly.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Horizontal Line Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is paragraph one and should be on top</p>
<hr />
<p>This is paragraph two and should be at bottom</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This is paragraph one and should be on top

This is paragraph two and should be at bottom

Note: The <hr /> tag is an empty element. If you miss the forward slash character and just use <hr> it is not valid in XHTML.

Preserve Formatting

Sometimes, you want your text to follow the exact format of how it is written in the HTML document. In these cases, you can use the preformatted tag <pre>.

Any text between the opening <pre> tag and the closing </pre> tag will preserve the formatting of the source document.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Preserve Formatting Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
function testFunction( strText ){ 
    alert (strText)
}
</pre>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

function testFunction( strText ){ 
    alert (strText)
}

Nonbreaking Spaces

Suppose you want to use the phrase "12 Angry Men." Here, you would not want a browser to split the "12, Angry" and "Men" across two lines.

In cases where you do not want the client browser to break text, you should use a nonbreaking space entity   instead of a normal space.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Nonbreaking Spaces Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>An example of this technique appears in the movie "12&nbsp;Angry&nbsp;Men."</p>
</body>
</html>

3. HTML – Elements

An HTML element is defined by a starting tag. If the element contains other content, it ends with a closing tag, where the element name is preceded by a forward slash as shown below with few tags:

Start Tag	Content	End Tag
<p>	This is paragraph content.	</p>
<h1>	This is heading content.	</h1>
<div>	This is division content.	</div>
<br />

There are some HTML elements which don't need to be closed, such as <img.../>, <hr /> and <br /> elements. These are known as void elements.

HTML Tag vs. Element

An HTML element is defined by a starting tag. If the element contains other content, it ends with a closing tag.

For example, <p> is starting tag of a paragraph and </p> is closing tag of the same paragraph but <p>This is paragraph</p> is a paragraph element.

Nested HTML Elements

It is very much allowed to keep one HTML element inside another HTML element:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Nested Elements Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is <i>italic</i> heading</h1>
<p>This is <u>underlined</u> paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>

This will display the following result:

This is italic heading

This is underlined paragraph

4. HTML – Attributes

We have seen few HTML tags and their usage like heading tags <h1>, <h2>, paragraph tag <p> and other tags. We used them so far in their simplest form, but most of the HTML tags can also have attributes, which are extra bits of information.

An attribute is used to define the characteristics of an HTML element and is placed inside the element's opening tag. All attributes are made up of two parts: a name and a value:

The name is the property you want to set. For example, the paragraph <p> element can carry an attribute whose name is align, which you can use to indicate the alignment of paragraph on the page.
The value is what you want the value of the property to be set and always put within quotations. The example below shows three possible values of align attribute: left, center and right.

Note: Attribute names and attribute values are case-insensitive. However, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase attributes/attribute values in their HTML 4 recommendation.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Align Attribute Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p align="left">This is left aligned</p>
<p align="center">This is center aligned</p>
<p align="right">This is right aligned</p>
</body>
</html>

This will display the following result:

This is left aligned

This is center aligned

This is right aligned

Core Attributes

The four core attributes that can be used on the majority of HTML elements (although not all) are:

Id
Title
Class
Style

The id Attribute

The id attribute of an HTML tag can be used to uniquely identify any element within an HTML page. There are two primary reasons that you might want to use an id attribute on an element:

If an element carries an id attribute as a unique identifier, it is possible to identify just that element and its content.
If you have two elements of the same name within a Web page (or style sheet), you can use the id attribute to distinguish between elements that have the same name.

Example

<p id="html">This para explains what is HTML</p>
<p id="css">This para explains what is Cascading Style Sheet</p>

The title Attribute

The title attribute gives a suggested title for the element. The syntax for the title attribute is similar as explained for id attribute.

The behavior of this attribute will depend upon the element that carries it, although it is often displayed as a tooltip when cursor comes over the element or while the element is loading.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>The title Attribute Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3 title="Hello HTML!">Titled Heading Tag Example</h3>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Titled Heading Tag Example

Now try to bring your cursor over "Titled Heading Tag Example" and you will see that whatever title you used in your code is coming out as a tooltip of the cursor.

The class Attribute

The class attribute is used to associate an element with a style sheet, and specifies the class of element. You will learn more about the use of the class attribute when you will learn Cascading Style Sheet (CSS).

The value of the attribute may also be a space-separated list of class names. For example:

class="className1 className2 className3"

The style Attribute

The style attribute allows you to specify Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) rules within the element.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>The style Attribute</title>
</head>
<body>
<p style="font-family:arial; color:#FF0000;">Some text...</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Some text...

Internationalization Attributes

There are three internationalization attributes, which are available for most (although not all) XHTML elements.

dir
lang
xml:lang

The dir Attribute

The dir attribute allows you to indicate to the browser about the direction in which the text should flow. The dir attribute can take one of two values:

Value	Meaning
ltr	Left to right (the default value)
rtl	Right to left (for languages such as Hebrew or Arabic that are read right to left)

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html dir="rtl">
<head>
<title>Display Directions</title>
</head>
<body>
This is how IE 5 renders right-to-left directed text.
</body>
</html>

When dir attribute is used within the <html> tag, it determines how text will be presented within the entire document. When used within another tag, it controls the text's direction for just the content of that tag.

The lang Attribute

The lang attribute allows you to indicate the main language used in a document, but this attribute was kept in HTML only for backwards compatibility with earlier versions of HTML. This attribute has been replaced by the xml:lang attribute in new XHTML documents.

The values of the lang attribute are ISO-639 standard two-character language codes.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>English Language Page</title>
</head>
<body>
This page is using English Language
</body>
</html>

The xml:lang Attribute

The xml:lang attribute is the XHTML replacement for the lang attribute. The value of the xml:lang attribute should be an ISO-639 country code.

Generic Attributes

Here's a table of some other attributes that are readily usable with many of the HTML tags.

Attribute	Options	Function
align	right, left, center	Horizontally aligns tags
valign	top, middle, bottom	Vertically aligns tags within an HTML element.
bgcolor	numeric, hexadecimal, RGB values	Places a background color behind an element
background	URL	Places a background image behind an element
id	User Defined	Names an element for use with Cascading Style Sheets.
class	User Defined	Classifies an element for use with Cascading Style Sheets.
width	Numeric Value	Specifies the width of tables, images, or table cells.
height	Numeric Value	Specifies the height of tables, images, or table cells.
title	User Defined	"Pop-up" title of the elements.

5. HTML – Formatting

If you use a word processor, you must be familiar with the ability to make text bold, italicized, or underlined; these are just three of the ten options available to indicate how text can appear in HTML and XHTML.

Bold Text

Anything that appears within <b>...</b> element, is displayed in bold as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Bold Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <b>bold</b> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a bold typeface.

Italic Text

Anything that appears within <i>...</i> element is displayed in italicized as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Italic Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses an <i>italicized</i> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses an italicized typeface.

Underlined Text

Anything that appears within <u>...</u> element, is displayed with underline as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Underlined Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses an <u>underlined</u> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses an underlined typeface.

Strike Text

Anything that appears within <strike>...</strike> element is displayed with strikethrough, which is a thin line through the text as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Strike Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <strike>strikethrough</strike> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a ~~strikethrough~~ typeface.

Monospaced Font

The content of a <tt>...</tt> element is written in monospaced font. Most of the fonts are known as variable-width fonts because different letters are of different widths (for example, the letter 'm' is wider than the letter 'l'). In a monospaced font, however, each letter has the same width.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Monospaced Font Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <tt>monospaced</tt> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a monospaced typeface.

Superscript Text

The content of a <sup>...</sup> element is written in superscript; the font size used is the same size as the characters surrounding it but is displayed half a character's height above the other characters.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Superscript Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <sup>superscript</sup> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a ^superscript typeface.

Subscript Text

The content of a <sub>...</sub> element is written in subscript; the font size used is the same as the characters surrounding it, but is displayed half a character's height beneath the other characters.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Subscript Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <sub>subscript</sub> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a _subscript typeface.

Inserted Text

Anything that appears within <ins>...</ins> element is displayed as inserted text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Inserted Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>I want to drink <del>cola</del> <ins>wine</ins></p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

I want to drink ~~cola~~ wine

Deleted Text

Anything that appears within <del>...</del> element, is displayed as deleted text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Deleted Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>I want to drink <del>cola</del> <ins>wine</ins></p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

I want to drink ~~cola~~ wine

Larger Text

The content of the <big>...</big> element is displayed one font size larger than the rest of the text surrounding it as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Larger Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <big>big</big> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a big typeface.

Smaller Text

The content of the <small>...</small> element is displayed one font size smaller than the rest of the text surrounding it as shown below:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Smaller Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <small>small</small> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a small typeface.

Grouping Content

The <div> and <span> elements allow you to group together several elements to create sections or subsections of a page.

For example, you might want to put all of the footnotes on a page within a <div> element to indicate that all of the elements within that <div> element relate to the footnotes. You might then attach a style to this <div> element so that they appear using a special set of style rules.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Div Tag Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="menu" align="middle">
<a href="/index.html">HOME</a> |
<a href="/about/contact_us.html">CONTACT</a> |
<a href="/about/index.html">ABOUT</a>
</div>

<div id="content" align="left" bgcolor="white">
<h5>Content Articles</h5>
<p>Actual content goes here......</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Content Articles

Actual content goes here......

The <span> element, on the other hand, can be used to group inline elements only. So, if you have a part of a sentence or paragraph which you want to group together, you could use the <span> element as follows:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Span Tag Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is the example of <span style="color:green">span tag</span> and the <span style="color:red">div tag</span> alongwith CSS</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This is the example of span tag and the div tag along with CSS

These tags are commonly used with CSS to allow you to attach a style to a section of a page.

6. HTML – Phrase Tags

The phrase tags have been designed for specific purposes, though they are displayed in a similar way as other basic tags like <b>, <i>, <pre>, and <tt>, you have seen in previous chapter.

Emphasized Text

Anything that appears within <em>...</em> element is displayed as emphasized text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Emphasized Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses an <em>emphasized</em> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses an emphasized typeface.

Marked Text

Anything that appears with-in <mark>...</mark> element, is displayed as marked with yellow ink.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Marked Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word has been <mark>marked</mark> with yellow</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word has been marked with yellow

Strong Text

Anything that appears within <strong>...</strong> element is displayed as important text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Strong Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <strong>strong</strong> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word uses a strong typeface.

Text Abbreviation

You can abbreviate a text by putting it inside opening <abbr> and closing </abbr> tags. If present, the title attribute must contain this full description and nothing else.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Text Abbreviation</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>My best friend's name is <abbr title="Abhishek">Abhy</abbr>. </p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

My best friend's name is Abhy.

Acronym Element

The <acronym> element allows you to indicate that the text between <acronym> and </acronym> tags is an acronym.

Note: The <acronym> tag is not supported in HTML5. Use the <abbr> tag instead.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Acronym Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This chapter covers marking up text in <acronym>XHTML</acronym>. </p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This chapter covers marking up text in XHTML.

Text Direction

The <bdo>...</bdo> element stands for Bi-Directional Override and it is used to override the current text direction.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Text Direction Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This text will go left to right.</p>
<p><bdo dir="rtl">This text will go right to left.</bdo></p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This text will go left to right.

This text will go right to left.

Special Terms

The <dfn>...</dfn> element (or HTML Definition Element) allows you to specify that you are introducing a special term. It's usage is similar to italic words in the midst of a paragraph.

Typically, you would use the <dfn> element the first time you introduce a key term. Most recent browsers render the content of a <dfn> element in an italic font.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Special Terms Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word is a <dfn>special</dfn> term.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following word is a special term.

Quoting Text

When you want to quote a passage from another source, you should put it in between <blockquote>...</blockquote> tags.

Text inside a <blockquote> element is usually indented from the left and right edges of the surrounding text, and sometimes uses an italicized font.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Blockquote Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following description of XHTML is taken from the W3C Web site:</p>

<blockquote>XHTML 1.0 is the W3C's first Recommendation for XHTML, following on from earlier work on HTML 4.01, HTML 4.0, HTML 3.2 and HTML 2.0.</blockquote>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

The following description of XHTML is taken from the W3C Web site:

XHTML 1.0 is the W3C's first Recommendation for XHTML, following on from earlier work on HTML 4.01, HTML 4.0, HTML 3.2 and HTML 2.0.

Short Quotations

The <q>...</q> element is used when you want to add a double quote within a sentence.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Double Quote Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Amit is in Spain, <q>I think I am wrong</q>. </p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Amit is in Spain, I think I am wrong.

Text Citations

If you are quoting a text, you can indicate the source placing it between an opening <cite> tag and closing </cite> tag.

As you would expect in a print publication, the content of the <cite> element is rendered in italicized text by default.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Citations Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This HTML tutorial is derived from <cite>W3 Standard for HTML</cite>. </p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

This HTML tutorial is derived from W3 Standard for HTML.

Computer Code

Any programming code to appear on a Web page should be placed inside <code>...</code> tags. Usually the content of the <code> element is presented in a monospaced font, just like the code in most programming books.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Computer Code Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Regular text. <code>This is code.</code> Regular text.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Regular text. This is code. Regular text.

Keyboard Text

When you are talking about computers, if you want to tell a reader to enter some text, you can use the <kbd>...<kbd> element to indicate what should be typed in.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Keyboard Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Regular text. <kbd>This is inside kbd element</kbd> Regular text.</p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Regular text. This is inside kbd element Regular text.

Programming Variables

This element is usually used in conjunction with the <pre> and <code> elements to indicate that the content of that element is a variable.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Variable Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><code>document.write("<var>user-name</var>")</code></p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

document.write("user-name")

Program Output

The <samp>...</samp> element indicates sample output from a program, and script etc. Again, it is mainly used when documenting programming or coding concepts.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Program Output Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Result produced by the program is <samp>Hello World!</samp></p>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

Result produced by the program is Hello World!

Address Text

The <address>...</address> element is used to contain any address.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Address Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<address>388A, Road No 22, Jubilee Hills - Hyderabad</address>
</body>
</html>

This will produce the following result:

388A, Road No 22, Jubilee Hills - Hyderabad

7. HTML – Meta Tags

HTML lets you specify metadata - additional important information about a document in a variety of ways. The META elements can be used to include name/value pairs describing properties of the HTML document, such as author, expiry date, a list of keywords, document author etc.

The <meta> tag is used to provide such additional information. This tag is an empty element and so does not have a closing tag but it carries information within its attributes.

You can include one or more meta tags in your document based on what information you want to keep in your document but in general, meta tags do not impact physical appearance of the document so from appearance point of view, it does not matter if you include them or not.

Adding Meta Tags to Your Documents

You can add metadata to your web pages by placing <meta> tags inside the header of the document which is represented by <head> and </head> tags. A meta tag can have following attributes in addition to core attributes:

Attribute	Description
Name	Name for the property. Can be anything. Examples include, keywords, description, author, revised, generator etc.
content	Specifies the property's value.
scheme	Specifies a scheme to interpret the property's value (as declared in the content attribute).
http-equiv	Used for http response message headers. For example, http-equiv can be used to refresh the page or to set a cookie. Values include content-type, expires, refresh and set-cookie.

Specifying Keywords

You can use <meta> tag to specify important keywords related to the document and later these keywords are used by the search engines while indexing your webpage for searching purpose.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Meta Tags Example</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Document Description

You can use <meta> tag to give a short description about the document. This again can be used by various search engines while indexing your webpage for searching purpose.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Meta Tags Example</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
<meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Document Revision Date

You can use <meta> tag to give information about when last time the document was updated. This information can be used by various web browsers while refreshing your webpage.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Meta Tags Example</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
<meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
<meta name="revised" content="Learn Code with Kali, 3/7/2024" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Document Refreshing

A <meta> tag can be used to specify a duration after which your web page will keep refreshing automatically.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Meta Tags Example</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
<meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
<meta name="revised" content="Learn Code with Kali, 3/7/2024" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Page Redirection

You can use <meta> tag to redirect your page to any other webpage. You can also specify a duration if you want to redirect the page after a certain number of seconds.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Meta Tags Example</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Meta Tags, Metadata" />
<meta name="description" content="Learning about Meta Tags." />
<meta name="revised" content="Learn Code with Kali, 3/7/2024" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=https://www.learncodewithkali.com" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello HTML5!</p>
</body>
</html>

Setting Cookies

Cookies are data, stored in small text files on your computer and it is exchanged between web browser and web server to keep track of various information based on your web application need.

You can use <meta> tag to store cookies on client side and later this information can be used by the Web Server to track a site visitor.

Note: The cookie setting <meta> tag is not supported in most modern browsers. For setting cookies, you should use JavaScript or server-side scripting languages.