HTML ( Hypertext Markup Language) is the standard language for creating documents for the World Wide Web (WWW). It is a basically a text file which contains instructions for you web browser. Within these instructions are commands to display text, multimedia objects and hyperlinks. Using HTML, an author can format a document for display and add hyperlinks which are "shortcuts" to other documents or files. HTML is the language web browsers read and basically is a set of "tags" with text. The tags are the commands which tell the web browser what to do and are the heart of HTML. Tags are encased in angled brackets which look like the following : "<" and ">". Tags begin with "<" and are closed by ">". 
      HTML is an ever evolving language and different web browsers may interpret the commands differently. HTML has been standardized by the WWW consortium and is always evolving to allow more flexibility in it's capabilities. For example , in addition to the text, multimedia, and hyperlink features of the previous versions of HTML, HTML 4.0 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, style sheets, better printing facilities, and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. HTML 4.0 also takes great strides towards the internationalization of documents, with the goal of making the Web truly World Wide.