RFC 1866 (rfc1866) - Page 1 of 77
Hypertext Markup Language - 2
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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
Berners-Lee & Connolly Standards Track