HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Wrapping Things Up
There are a lot more tags and attributes in the HTML5 specification, but the content in this
topic is sufficient for starters. The purpose of any type of markup is to add meaning to a doc-
ument; we can even think of going through a topic with a highlighter pen as adding markup
to a document. As it was mentioned previously, when HTML first appeared, the purpose of
markup was to explain the structure of a document—what text represents a heading, what
is a paragraph, what is a bulleted point, and so on. As it grew in popularity, HTML started
to include markup that controlled the appearance of documents. HTML5 aims to return the
markup function to solely describing the structure and semantics of the document.
Almost all HTML elements are interpreted by web browsers and presented in a different
manner from each other. For example, the <h1> to <h6> elements are all presented differ-
ently from the content of a <p> element; list items in an <ol> element are presented differ-
ently from those in a <ul> element. However, all of these elements describe the structure of
the document: what is a heading, what is an item in a numbered list, and so on. The way
the content of these elements is presented reflects the structure that the markup imposes,
which is why the heading elements get smaller from <h1> through to <h6>, and why the
<li> elements create separate numbered items or bulleted points depending on whether they
are contained inside an <ol> or <ul> element.
Elements that describe a document's structure are very different from those that just affect
the presentation of the document without adding any meaning. Therefore, HTML5 cuts these
purely presentational elements and attributes from HTML.
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