HTML generally appears in [text file]?s either stored or created by computers, and then sent over the internet to a web browser. These files contain marked-up text, that is, instructions for how a web browser should render the page. There are a number of different kinds of markup? tag? in HTML - perhaps the most important being the hyperlink? tag, <a>, which allows links to be made between documents on the World Wide Web. Other tags tell the browser exactly how to render the text, such as and , which should produce <b>embolden and <i>italicised text respectively, others give more general instructions, such as and , which instruct the browser to <em>emphasise the text or to make it <strong>stronger than the rest of the text. Other tags allow for metadata to be included, such as the title of the page, or delimiting the header and body sections, which are all included within the <html> .. </html> tags. Other tags which have been added later as the specification evolved allow in-line pictures and video, tables and other enhancements required.
However, HTML is a static text description language, and technologies such as JavaScript and [Shockwave Flash]? have allowed for more stylish and interactive webpages.
As with many Internet standards, the popularity and technological advancement of the World Wide Web grew much faster than standards bodies could track, so there are some incompatible proprietary versions of HTML still in use, though standards are improving. But nowadays most features of HTML 4.0 are implemented by the major browsers. HTML 4.0 gives a fairly comprehensive set of formatting options especially in combination with CSS
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