Designing Your Website with HTML/HTML5

By Sue Jenkins

Part of the Web Design All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet

If you're designing websites, you're probably going to want to use standards-compliant HTML5 markup — after all, you need to use some type of markup language so that your websites can communicate, right? The table here gives you a rundown of the most popular HTML5 tags and tells you what each does.

Tag	Description
<!--...-->	Defines a comment in the HTML code
<!DOCTYPE>	Defines the document type
<a>	Defines an anchor
<article>	Defines an article
<aside>	Defines content that sides next to other content
<audio>	Defines a sound
<blockquote>	Defines a long quotation
<body>	Defines the body element
<br>	Inserts a single line break
<canvas>	Defines an area where graphics can be drawn with JavaScript
<caption>	Defines a table caption
<cite>	Defines a citation
<code>	Defines computer code text
<details>	Defines a details section that can be shown or hidden
<div>	Defines a section in a document
<em>	Defines emphasized (italic) text
<embed>	Defines a space to insert media files like plug-ins or applications
<figure>	Defines content like photos, illustrations, and diagrams, etc.
<figcaption>	Defines the caption for a figure
<footer>	Defines a footer for a section or the entire document
<form>	Defines a form
<h1> to <h6>	Defines header 1 to header 6
<head>	Defines information about the document
<header>	Defines a header for a section or the entire document
<hr>	Defines a horizontal rule
<html>	Defines an HTML document
<iframe>	Defines an inline subwindow (frame)
<img>	Defines an image
<input>	Defines an input field
<label>	Defines a label for a form control
<li>	Defines a list item
<link>	Defines a resource reference
<map>	Defines an image map
<meta>	Defines meta information
<nav>	Defines a set of navigation links
<noscript>	Defines a noscript section
<ol>	Defines an ordered list
<p>	Defines a paragraph
<pre>	Defines preformatted text
<script>	Defines a script
<section>	Defines a section within a document
<select>	Defines a selectable list
<source>	Defines a media resource for audio or video
<span>	Defines a section in a document
<strong>	Defines strong (bold) text
<style>	Defines a style definition
<sub>	Defines subscripted text
<summary>	Defines a heading for a <details> element
<sup>	Defines superscripted text
<table>	Defines a table
<td>	Defines a table cell
<textarea>	Defines a text area
<th>	Defines a table header
<time>	Defines the date or time
<title>	Defines the document title
<tr>	Defines a table row
<track>	Defines the text tracks for audio or video
<ul>	Defines an unordered list
<video>	Defines a movie file or video