abstract.sgm

<sect>Abstract

<p>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.

<p>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. It is defined
as an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing
Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

<p>The <tt>"text/html"</> Internet Media Type (RFC 1590)
and MIME Content Type (RFC&nbsp;1521) is defined by this specification.