The HTML Language - HTML Manual of Style - page 36

are particularly important. hey must be used to show the symbols that would
ordinarily be taken as the beginning (or end) of an HTML markup tag or
character entity:

&lt; < Let-angle bracket or less-than sign
&gt; > Right-angle bracket or greater-than sign
&amp; & Ampersand
he following are also useful:

Double quote mark

&quot; "

Let smart (curly) double quote

&ldquo; "

Right smart (curly) double quote

&rdquo; "

- Medium-length dash (en dash)

&ndash;

— Long dash (em dash)

&mdash;

Nonbreaking space

&nbsp;

Copyright symbol

&copy; ©

MArkup ELEMEnTS
Every HTML markup element begins with a start tag consisting of an open-
ing angle bracket (<) followed by the element name, followed by zero or more
attributes separated by spaces, followed by the closing angle bracket (>) .
Markup tags are either self-closing or paired with a closing tag to create a
container. Inside the container is content with possibly its own markup code.
Containers can be nested as deeply as needed. Self-closing tags have a slash (/)
immediately before the closing angle bracket. Ending tags have a slash imme-
diately ater the opening angle bracket, followed by the element name, fol-
lowed by the closing angle bracket. Ending tags do not contain attributes, nor
should they contain any blanks or other white space.
A markup container can also be empty, as is common in the HTML ele-
ments for creating tables or just for creating an entry in the DOM that will be
illed later by a script function, triggered by a mouse action.
In general, containers segregate and modify content, and self-closing tags,
which are sometimes called empty tags, insert objects into the content. Here
are a couple examples of self-closing tags: