Network Working Group                                    T. Berners-Lee
Request for Comments: 1866                                      MIT/W3C
Category: Standards Track                                   D. Connolly
                                                          November 1995


                    Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used
   to create hypertext documents that are platform independent. HTML
   documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are
   appropriate for representing information from a wide range of
   domains. HTML markup can represent hypertext news, mail,
   documentation, and hypermedia; menus of options; database query
   results; simple structured documents with in-lined graphics; and
   hypertext views of existing bodies of information.

   HTML has been in use by the World Wide Web (WWW) global information
   initiative since 1990. This specification roughly corresponds to the
   capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. HTML is an
   application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and
   Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

   The "text/html" Internet Media Type (RFC 1590) and MIME Content Type
   (RFC 1521) is defined by this specification.

Table of Contents

    1.     Introduction ........................................... 2
    1.1    Scope .................................................. 3
    1.2    Conformance ............................................ 3
    2.     Terms .................................................. 6
    3.     HTML as an Application of SGML .........................10
    3.1    SGML Documents .........................................10
    3.2    HTML Lexical Syntax ................................... 12
    3.3    HTML Public Text Identifiers .......................... 17
    3.4    Example HTML Document ................................. 17
    4.     HTML as an Internet Media Type ........................ 18




 
RFC 1866            Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0        November 1995


    4.1    text/html media type .................................. 18
    4.2    HTML Document Representation .......................... 19
    5.     Document Structure .................................... 20
    5.1    Document Element: HTML ................................ 21
    5.2    Head: HEAD ............................................ 21
    5.3    Body: BODY ............................................ 24
    5.4    Headings: H1 ... H6 ................................... 24
    5.5    Block Structuring Elements ............................ 25
    5.6    List Elements ......................................... 28
    5.7    Phrase Markup ......................................... 30
    5.8    Line Break: BR ........................................ 34
    5.9    Horizontal Rule: HR ................................... 34
    5.10   Image: IMG ............................................ 34
    6.     Characters, Words, and Paragraphs ..................... 35
    6.1    The HTML Document Character Set ....................... 36
    7.     Hyperlinks ............................................ 36
    7.1    Accessing Resources ................................... 37
    7.2    Activation of Hyperlinks .............................. 38
    7.3    Simultaneous Presentation of Image Resources .......... 38
    7.4    Fragment Identifiers .................................. 38
    7.5    Queries and Indexes ................................... 39
    7.6    Image Maps ............................................ 39
    8.     Forms ................................................. 40
    8.1    Form Elements ......................................... 40
    8.2    Form Submission ....................................... 45
    9.     HTML Public Text ...................................... 49
    9.1    HTML DTD .............................................. 49
    9.2    Strict HTML DTD ....................................... 61
    9.3    Level 1 HTML DTD ...................................... 62
    9.4    Strict Level 1 HTML DTD ............................... 63
    9.5    SGML Declaration for HTML ............................. 64
    9.6    Sample SGML Open Entity Catalog for HTML .............. 65
    9.7    Character Entity Sets ................................. 66
    10.    Security Considerations ............................... 69
    11.    References ............................................ 69
    12.    Acknowledgments ....................................... 71
    12.1   Authors' Addresses .................................... 71
    13.    The HTML Coded Character Set .......................... 72