What are Tags

Tags are HTML control elements enclosed by angle brackets "< >" - and are used in pairs - called containers. There is a start tag - the body of text being controlled - followed by an end tag - identified by "/" in front of the tag name - and can be viewed as switching functions on and off.

i.e. <u>underline ON</u> underline OFF.

Tags control every aspect of the page layout and may be nested so that there is one container enclosed by another. In addition to controlling layout they also define links to other pages or images.

There are exceptions to container tags - the main ones being:

<br> break or new line
<p> new paragraph

which do not need end tags.

There is a special form of tag enclosure for comments. Comments are not displayed on the screen but are there as an aid to understanding the HTML code - and are enclused thus.