REC-html40-19980424
HTML 4.0 Specification
W3C Recommendation, revised on 24-Apr-1998
- This version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424
- Latest version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40
- Previous version:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40-971218
- Editors:
- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>
Arnaud Le Hors <lehors@w3.org>
Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
Abstract
This specification defines the HyperText Markup Language (HTML),
version 4.0, the publishing language of the World Wide Web. 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.
HTML 4.0 is an SGML application conforming to International
Standard ISO 8879 -- Standard Generalized Markup Language [ISO8879].
Status of this document
This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested
parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C
Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference
material or cited as a normative reference from another
document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention
to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This
enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
W3C recommends that user agents and authors (and in particular,
authoring tools) produce HTML 4.0 documents rather than HTML 3.2
documents (see [HTML32]).
For reasons of backwards compatibility, W3C also recommends that tools
interpreting HTML 4.0 continue to support HTML 3.2 and HTML 2.0 as
well.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents
can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.
Public discussion on HTML features takes place on www-html@w3.org.
This document is a revised version of the document first released on
18 December 1997. Changes from the
original version are only editorial in nature.
Available formats
The HTML 4.0 W3C Recommendation is also available in the
following formats:
- A plain text file:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.txt
(735Kb),
- A gzip'ed tar file containing HTML documents:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.tgz
(357Kb),
- A zip file containing HTML documents
(this is a '.zip' file not an '.exe'):
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.zip
(389Kb),
- A gzip'ed Postscript file:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.ps.gz
(600Kb, 367 pages),
- A PDF file:
- http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.pdf
(2.1Mb) file.
In case of a discrepancy between electronic and printed forms of
the specification, the electronic version is the definitive version.
Available languages
The English version of this specification is the only normative
version. However, for translations of this document, see http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/translations.html.
Errata
- The list of known errors in this specification is available at:
- http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/REC-html40-19980424-errata.html
Please report errors in this document to www-html-editor@w3.org.
- About the HTML 4.0 Specification
- How the specification is organized
- Document conventions
- Elements and attributes
- Notes and examples
- Acknowledgments
- Copyright Notice
- Introduction to HTML 4.0
- What is the World Wide Web?
- Introduction to URIs
- Fragment identifiers
- Relative URIs
- What is HTML?
- A brief history of HTML
- HTML 4.0
- Internationalization
-
Accessibility
- Tables
- Compound documents
- Style sheets
- Scripting
- Printing
- Authoring documents with HTML 4.0
- Separate structure and presentation
- Consider universal accessibility to the Web
- Help user agents with incremental rendering
- On SGML and HTML
- Introduction to SGML
- SGML constructs used in HTML
- Elements
- Attributes
- Character references
- Comments
- How to read the HTML DTD
- DTD Comments
- Parameter entity definitions
- Element declarations
- Attribute declarations
- Conformance: requirements
and recommendations
- Definitions
- SGML
- The text/html content type
- HTML Document Representation
- Character sets, character encodings, and entities
- The Document Character Set
- Character encodings
-
Choosing an encoding
- Specifying the character encoding
- Character references
- Numeric character references
- Character entity references
- Undisplayable characters
- Basic HTML data
types - Character data, colors, lengths, URIs, content types, etc.
- Case information
- SGML basic types
- Text strings
- URIs
- Colors
- Notes on using colors
- Lengths
- Content types (MIME types)
- Language codes
- Character encodings
- Single characters
-
Dates and times
- Link types
- Media descriptors
-
Script data
-
Style sheet data
- Frame target names
- The global structure of an HTML document - The HEAD and BODY of a document
- Introduction to the structure of an HTML document
- HTML version information
- The HTML element
- The document head
- The HEAD element
- The TITLE
element
- The title attribute
- Meta data
- The document body
- The BODY element
- Element identifiers: the id
and class attributes
- Block-level and inline elements
- Grouping elements: the DIV and SPAN elements
- Headings: The H1,
H2,
H3,
H4,
H5,
H6 elements
- The ADDRESS
element
- Language information and text direction -
International considerations for text
- Specifying the language of content: the
lang attribute
- Language codes
- Inheritance of language codes
- Interpretation of language codes
- Specifying the direction of text and tables: the
dir attribute
- Introduction to the
bidirectional algorithm
-
Inheritance of text direction
information
- Setting the direction of embedded text
- Overriding the bidirectional algorithm: the BDO element
- Character references for directionality and joining
control
-
The
effect of style sheets on bidirectionality
- Text - Paragraphs, Lines, and Phrases
-
White
space
- Structured text
- Phrase elements: EM,
STRONG, DFN, CODE, SAMP,
KBD, VAR, CITE, ABBR, and ACRONYM
- Quotations: The
BLOCKQUOTE and Q
elements
- Subscripts and superscripts: the SUB and
SUP elements
- Lines and Paragraphs
- Paragraphs: the P
element
- Controlling line breaks
-
Hyphenation
- Preformatted text: The PRE element
-
Visual rendering of paragraphs
- Marking document changes: The INS and DEL elements
- Lists - Unordered, Ordered, and Definition Lists
- Introduction to lists
-
Unordered lists (UL),
ordered lists (OL), and list items (LI)
-
Definition lists: the DL,
DT,
and
DD elements
- Visual
rendering of lists
- The DIR and MENU elements
- Tables
- Introduction to tables
- Elements for constructing tables
- The TABLE
element
- Table Captions: The CAPTION element
- Row groups: the THEAD, TFOOT, and TBODY elements
- Column groups: the COLGROUP and COL elements
- Table rows: The TR element
- Table cells: The TH and TD elements
-
Table formatting by visual user
agents
-
Borders and rules
-
Horizontal
and vertical alignment
-
Cell margins
-
Table rendering by non-visual user
agents
- Associating header information with data
cells
-
Categorizing cells
-
Algorithm to find heading information
- Sample table
- Links - Hypertext and Media-Independent Links
- Introduction to links and anchors
- Visiting a linked resource
-
Other link relationships
- Specifying anchors and links
-
Link titles
-
Internationalization and links
- The A element
-
Syntax of anchor names
-
Nested links are illegal
-
Anchors with the id
attribute
-
Unavailable and unidentifiable resources
- Document relationships: the LINK element
-
Forward and reverse links
-
Links and
external style sheets
-
Links and search engines
- Path information: the
BASE element
-
Resolving relative
URIs
- Objects, Images, and Applets
- Introduction to objects, images, and applets
- Including an image: the IMG element
- Generic inclusion: the OBJECT element
-
Rules for rendering objects
-
Object initialization: the PARAM element
-
Global naming schemes for objects
-
Object declarations and
instantiations
- Including an applet: the APPLET element
- Notes on embedded documents
-
Image maps
- Client-side image maps:
the MAP
and AREA
elements
-
Server-side image maps
-
Visual presentation
of images, objects, and applets
-
Width and
height
-
White space around images and objects
-
Borders
-
Alignment
-
How to specify alternate text
- Style Sheets -
Adding style to HTML documents
-
Introduction to style sheets
- Adding style to HTML
-
Setting the default style sheet
language
- Inline style information
- Header style information: the STYLE element
-
Media
types
-
External style sheets
- Preferred and alternate style sheets
-
Specifying external style
sheets
-
Cascading style sheets
-
Media-dependent cascades
- Inheritance and cascading
-
Hiding
style data from user agents
-
Linking to style sheets with HTTP headers
- Alignment, font styles, and horizontal rules
- Formatting
-
Background color
-
Alignment
- Floating objects