HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the programming language used to write web documents. This language is not difficult to learn and you do not have to be a programmer to understand and use it. In most instances, the files produced with HTML are static, or unchanging, and are displayed to the viewer by their browser just as the file was created.

In practical terms, HTML is a collection of platform-independent styles (indicated by markup tags) that define the various components of a World Wide Web document. HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva.

HTML documents are plain-text (also known as ASCII) files that can be created using any text editor (e.g., Emacs or vi on UNIX machines; SimpleText on a Macintosh; Notepad on a Windows machine).