HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch- to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags such as <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc. Here is a 10-minute guide for newcomers to HTML. W3C's statement of direction for HTML is given on the HTML Activity Statement. See also the page on our work on the next generation of Web forms, and the section on Web history.
The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML™) is a family of current and future document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML, reformulated in XML. XHTML Family document types are all XML-based, and ultimately are designed to work in conjunction with XML-based user agents. XHTML is the successor of HTML, and a series of specifications has been developed forXHTML. See also: HTML and XHTML Frequently Answered Questions
HTML 4.01 is a revision of the HTML 4.0 Recommendation first released on 18th December 1997. The revision fixes minor errors that have been found since then. The XHTML 1.0 spec relies on HTML 4.01 for the meanings of XHTML elements and attributes. This allowed us to reduce the size of the XHTML 1.0 spec very considerably.
XHTML Basic is the second Recommendation in a series of XHTML specifications.
The XHTML Basic document type includes the minimal set of modules required to be an XHTML Host Language document type, and in addition it includes images, forms, basic tables, and object support. It is designed for Web clients that do not support the full set of XHTML features; for example, Web clients such as mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, and settop boxes. The document type is rich enough for content authoring.
XHTML Basic is designed as a common base that may be extended. For example, an event module that is more generic than the traditional HTML 4 event system could be added or it could be extended by additional modules from XHTML Modularization such as the Scripting Module. The goal of XHTML Basic is to serve as a common language supported by various kinds of user agents.
The document type definition is implemented using XHTML modules as defined in "Modularization of XHTML".
The complete XHTML Basic specification is available in English in several formats, including HTML, plain text, PostScript and PDF. See also the list of translations produced by volunteers.