Learning HTML 3.2 - Glossary

World Wide Web Alphabet Soup

Here are definitions for a few acronyms you'll come across as we learn HTML.

WWW

World Wide Web - That part of the Information Superhighway that can be "surfed" with a browser (you're looking at it .)

SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language - This is perhaps best thought of as a programming language for style sheets.

DTD

Document Type Definition - This is a specific implementation of document description using SGML.  One way to think about this is:  Fortran is to a computer program as SGML is to a DTD.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language - HTML is a SGML DTD.  In practical terms, HTML is a collection of styles used to define the various components of a World Wide Web document.

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get - The common definition although it may not be true of the Web as different browsers see things differently.

RTF

Rich Text Format - A form of SGML used in word processing.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator - An absolute pathname that identifies a location on the World Wide Web.

Tag

Tags instruct the web browser how to display the text that you've written.

Attribute

Attributes modify how the Tag displays the text in the browser.  The Tag has a default attribute which need not be specified and is generally what is most common usage of the Tag.

Hyperlink

The enclosed text and/or image(s) of the hyperlink will be selectable by the user, and doing so will take the user to the location specified.