INTERNET DRAFT November 28, 1994 Expires in six months HyperText Markup Language Specification - 2.0 STATUS OF THIS MEMO This document is an Internet draft. Internet drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet drafts. Internet drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to the HTML working group (HTML-WG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) at . Discussions of the group are archived at URL: http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML_WG/archives.html. Abstract The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of applications. 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 corresponds to the legitimate capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. It is defined as an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). This specificiation is proposed as the Internet Media Type (RFC 1590) and MIME Content Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 1 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994 Type (RFC 1521) called "text/html", or "text/html; version=2.0". Contents Overview of HTML Specification........................ 1 HTML Specification.................................... 10 Security Considerations............................... 52 Obsolete and Proposed Features........................ 52 HTML Document Type Definitions........................ 55 DTD Element References................................ 71 Glossary.............................................. 89 References............................................ 92 Acknowledgments....................................... 93 Author's Addresses.................................... 95 1. Overview of HTML Specification This chapter is a summary of the HTML specification. See Section 2. for the complete specification. HTML describes the structure and organization of a document. It only suggests appropriate presentations of the document when processed. In HTML documents, tags define the start and end of headings, paragraphs, lists, character highlighting and links. Most HTML elements are identified in a document as a start tag, which gives the element name and attributes, followed by the content, followed by the end tag. Start tags are delimited by < and >, and end tags are delimited by . Example:

This is a heading

Every HTML document starts with a HTML document identifier which contains two sections, a head and a body. The head contains HTML elements which describe the Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 2 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994 documents title, usage and relationship with other documents. The body contains other HTML elements with the entire text and graphics of the document. This overview briefly describes the syntax of HTML elements and provides an example HTML document. NOTE: The term "HTML user agent" is used in this document to describe applications that are used with HTML documents. 1.1 HTML Elements 1.1.1 Document Structure Elements HTML Identifier ... The HTML identifier defines the document as containing HTML elements. It contains only the Head and Body elements. Head ... The Head element contains HTML elements that describe the documents title, usage and relationship with other documents. Body ... The Body element contains the text and its associated HTML elements of the document. Example of Document Structure Elements The Document's Title The document's text. 1.1.2 Anchor Element Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 3 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994 Anchor ... An anchor specifies a link to another location () or the value to use when linking to this location from another location (): See HaL's information for more details. Section B describes... ... See Section B for more information. 1.1.3 Block Formatting Elements Address
...
Newsletter editor
J.R. Brown
JimquickPost News, Jumquick, CT 01234
Tel (123) 456 7890
Body ... Place the and tags above and below the body of the text (not including the head) of your HTML document. Blockquote
...
I think it ends

Soft you now, the fair Ophelia. Nymph, in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered.

but I am not sure. Head ... Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 4 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994 Every HTML document must have a head, which provides a title. Example: Introduction to HTML Headings

This is a first level heading

There are six levels of headings.

Second level heading

This text appears under the second level heading Horizontal Rule


Inserts a horizontal rule that spans the width of the document. Example:
November 28, 1994, CERN
HTML Identifier ... An HTML document begins with an tag and ends with the tag. Line Break
Forces a line break: Name
Street address
City, State Zip Paragraph

...

This Heading Precedes the Paragraph

This is the text of the first paragraph. Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 5 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994

This is the text of the second paragraph. Although you do not need to start paragraphs on new lines, maintaining this convention facilitates document maintenance.

This is the text of a third paragraph. Preformatted Text

 ... 
            This is an example of preformatted text.
            
Title ... Title of document 1.1.4 List Elements Definition List
...
term
definition...
Term
This is the first definition.
Term
This is the second definition.
Directory List ...
  • List item...
  • A-H
  • I-M
  • M-R
  • S-Z
  • Menu List ...
  • List item...
  • First item in the list.
  • Second item in the list.
  • Third item in the list.
  • Berners-Lee, Connolly, et. al. Page 6 HTML 2.0 November 28, 1994 Ordered List
      ...
    1. List item...
    1. Click the Web button to open the Open the URL window.
    2. Enter the URL number in the text field of the Open URL window. The Web document you specified is displayed.
    3. Click highlighted text to move from one link to another.
    Unordered List 1.1.5 Information Type and Character Formatting Elements Bold ... Suggests the rendering of the text in boldface. If boldface is not available, alternative mapping is allowed. Citation ... Specifies a citation; typically rendered as italic. Code ... Indicates an inline example of code; typically rendered as monospaced.. Do not confuse with the
     tag.
    
             Emphasis
    
                 ... 
    
    
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                Provides typographic emphasis; typically rendered as
                italics.
    
             Italics
    
                 ... 
    
                Suggests the rendering of text in italic font, or
                slanted if italic is not available.
    
             Keyboard
    
                 ... 
    
                Indicates text typed by a user; typically rendered as
                monospaced.
    
             Sample
    
                 ... 
    
                Indicates a sequence of literal characters; typically
                rendered as monospaced..
    
             Strong
    
                 ... 
    
                Provides strong typographic emphasis; typically rendered
                as bold.
    
             Typetype
    
                 ... 
    
                Specifies that the text be rendered in fixed-width font.
    
             Variable
    
                 ... 
    
                Indicates a variable name; typically rendered as italic.
    
           1.1.6 Image Element
    
             Image
    
                
    
                Inserts the referenced graphic image into the document
    
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                at the location where the element occurs.
    
                Example:
    
                Warning: Be sure to read
                these instructions.
    
          1.1.7 Form Elements
    
             Form
    
                
    ...
    The Form element contains nested elements (described below) which define user input controls and allow descriptive text to be displayed when the document is processed. Input Takes these attributes: ALIGN, MAXLENGTH, NAME, SIZE, SRC, TYPE, VALUE. The type attribute can define these field types: CHECKBOX, HIDDEN, IMAGE, PASSWORD, RADIO, RESET, SUBMIT, TEXT. Example:

    Your name:

    Male

    Female

    Option