Many people have provided suggestions and assistance as the Bare Bones Guide to HTML has developed. My thanks go out to everyone who has contributed to the effort.
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Several people have created excellent HTML guides and made them available on the Web -- who needs another one?
This document is designed to serve a particular niche. It is intended as a concise "cheat sheet" that you can use to look up the correct forms of tags as you are creating Web pages. Other HTML guides provide significantly more descriptive material about how to use particular tags or how HTML works in general. If you are a beginner, you might try one of those guides first.
There are also several style guides that focus more on how to write pages that look good and work on different browsers. I encourage you to read one or more of them if you are planning on creating Web pages; far too many people ignore the fact that their pages are going to be read by other people and that there are better and worse ways of doing things.
My WWW Help Page has links to numerous other sites that provide information on HTML and Web page design. It's a good place to start if you have specific questions that go beyond the "bare bones" information provided here.
This guide is designed for people who know enough not to need step-by-step instructions, but who haven't memorized the exact format of every HTML tag yet. If you want a "quick reference" that you can glance at without having to read through additional descriptive material, this guide is for you.
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The other distinguishing aspect of this guide is what it includes. The Bare Bones Guide to HTML is intended to include all of the tags in common usage on Web pages today. Specifically, the Guide lists the following:
The development of HTML has been a confusing process, as attempts to adopt formal standards have often been overrun by developments in the marketplace. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the official standards body for HTML. The current W3C recommendation is HTML 4.0.
In its Position Statement on HTML, W3C recommends that information providers use the HTML 4.0 specification, but that tools also be backward-compatible with earlier versions. Therefore, version 4.0 of the Bare Bones Guide to HTML includes all the HTML 4.0 tags, but distinguishes tags introduced in version 4.0 from those in version 3.2 as well.
I have also included all of the Netscape and Microsoft extensions to HTML, with the exception of some server interaction tags such as server push animation. Some of these extensions will not display properly if people viewing your pages are using another browser, so you should think about your audience before deciding whether to use them.
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For clarity, I have separated out different attributes that can be applied to the same tag onto separate lines. Generally, multiple attributes can be combined in the same tag.
Tags are listed in upper case for ease of reading, although most tags are not case sensitive.
URL URL of an external file (or just file name if in the same directory) ? Arbitrary number (i.e. <H?> means <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, etc.) % Arbitrary percentage (i.e. <HR width="%"> means <HR width="50%">, etc.) *** Arbitrary text (i.e. ALT="***" means fill in with text) $$$$$$ Arbitrary hex (i.e. BGCOLOR="#$$$$$$" means BGCOLOR="#00FF1C", etc.) ::: Arbitrary date (i.e. DATETIME=":::" means "1994-11-05T08:15:30" etc.) @ Email address (i.e. "mailto:@" means "mailto:kevin@werbach.com" etc.) ,,, Comma-delimited (i.e. COORDS=",,," means COORDS="0,0,50,50", etc.) | Alternatives (i.e. ALIGN=LEFT|RIGHT|CENTER means pick one of these)
(no notation) In the HTML 3.2 spec.; should work on all browsers 4.0 Introduced in HTML 4.0 recommendation N1 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 1.0 or 1.1 N2 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 2.0 N3 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator version 3.0 N4 Netscape extension introduced with Navigator/Communicator version 4.0 MS Microsoft Internet Explorer extension * Netscape extension now included in the HTML 4.0 specification
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Version 4.0 -- January 1999.
Version 3.0 -- July 21, 1996.
Version 2.0 -- October 7, 1995. Lots of changes and corrections in this version.