What is HTML and CSS?

18 March, 2010

• css
• definitions
• html
• web design

Ismail Koci

Category: Web Design

Building a website takes a lot of work. There is much going on behind the scenes, some of which may sound like an alien language to people not completely versed in web technology. The acronyms HTML and CSS could be some of those things, so I've broken them down into simplified definitions minus all the tech speak.

HTML

What does that stand for? Hypertext Markup Language. So what does that mean? Basically, HTML is a code language which allows a document to be read by your web browser.

Primarily it helps control the format of said document's content and design. It does this by using a set of tags that not only give content and design a place to sit, but it also provides a framework for a designer to control the style by using another coding language called CSS.

CSS

That stands for Cascading Style Sheets. As mentioned, CSS is used to style HTML. It does this by targeting specific or related tags within HTML, and applies rules to them that make a website look the way it does.

Even though CSS is one of the more simple and easy to understand coding languages, its power and possibilities are astounding. Most (sometimes all) of the pretty things you see on a website are probably brought to life using CSS. From the size and colour of text, to beautiful textured backgrounds, CSS can do almost anything.

That's a wrap

I know it can be daunting when you're talking to someone who uses lots of technical words and acronyms, so hopefully this has helped you to understand the basic concept of HTML and CSS.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll be happy to help you out!