The Extended Hyper-Text Markup Language is a set of standardized codes used to prepare documents for the World Wide Web. Browsers interpret these XHTML codes into a formatted, readable Web page. It is important to understand that XHTML describes a structured document, not page layout.

This document structure is determined through the use of paired tags which consist of a beginning tag (an XHTML command surrounded by left and right brackets <tag>) and an ending tag (the XHTML command preceded by a forward slash and surrounded by left and right brackets </tag>). There are also single tags which we will examine shortly.

Example:
<tag>your text and other information</tag>

The browser will interpret information between paired tags and then display that information accordingly based upon the tag’s XHTML command(s).

Most XHTML tags can be further embellished by the inclusion of one or more attributes. Attributes are placed within the opening XHTML tag and may take the form of align="value".

Example:
<tag attribute="value">your information</tag>

Note that attributes are only placed within the opening tag. It is not necessary for any attributes to be placed within the closing tag.

The practical applications of these tags will become clearer as we learn more about specific XHTML commands and their uses. For now, let's start at the beginning with Preliminaries.

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Preliminaries