Markup Languages

Markup languages are all about describing the form of the document—that is, the way the content of the document should be interpreted. The markup language that most people are familiar with today, of course, is HTML, which you use to create standard Web pages. Here's a sample HTML page:

<HTML>
    <HEAD>
        <TITLE>Hello From HTML</TITLE>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
        <CENTER>
            <H1>
               Hello From HTML
            </H1>
        </CENTER>
        Welcome to the wild and woolly world of HTML.
    </BODY>
</HTML>

You can see the results of this HTML in Figure 1.1 in Netscape Navigator. Note that the HTML markup in this page—that is, tags such as <HEAD>, <CENTER>, <H1>, and so on—is there to give directions to the browser. That's what markup does; it specifies directions on the way the ...

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