Web pages are relatively simple affairs. You just type in your text and then you insert markers--called--tags--that spell out how you want things to look. For example, if you want a word on your page to appear in bold text, you surround that word with the appropriate tags for boldfacing text.

     The TAG part is a code (usually one or two letters) that specifies the type of effect you want. For example, the tag for boldfacing text is <B>. So if you wanted the phrase ACME Coyote Supplies to appear in bold, you'd type the following into your document.

     The first <B> say : "Yo! Start showing the text in bold." This continues until the <B> appears. The slash (/) defines this as an end tag, which says: "Okay, enough with the boldfacing already!" As you'll see, there are tags for lots of other effects, including italics, paragraphs, heading, page titles, list, and lots more.

     HTML (which stand for HyperText Markup Language) is just the sum total of all these tags. You'll find out more about HTML in Chapter 3, "A Brief HTML Web Page Primer," and I'll serve up some more tag trivia in Chapter 4, "Laying the Foundation: The Basic Structure of a Web Page."