What is HTML?
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It consists of a set of codes that are inserted in a document to control the way the document is displayed by a "web browser" such as Netscape Navigator/Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. HTML is a language and it has specific rules that must be followed, defines a syntax, a strict way in which it is written and read. HTML is a markup language and marks specific part of it giving it special meaning. Hypertext is text, in any format, with an added feature: parts of the text are linked to other parts of the text, making it easy to jump form one part of the text to another.
It is not a layout language. You only have the ability to markup individual elements in a document; you will not have full control over the way those elements relate to one another or the way your web pages appear on the users monitor.
This may be confusing to who are familiar with creating a particular document on a particular program (PageMaker for example) then viewing and printing it in that same program. What you see is what you get because the same program is used to create view and print the document. With HTML the document you create may be viewed on a variety of web browsers and operating systems (Internet Explorer, Netscape, AOL, Juno, etc.). Also web pages are displayed at various resolutions. A web page seen on Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows95 at 640* 480 will look different to someone looking at Netscape Navigator 4.5 for Macintosh at 600*800.