5 HTML Elements

You’ve seen the term “element” in the prior lesson, but what is an HTML element?

Simply put, an HTML element is a component of the code that denotes a different type of formatting. Elements are the puzzle pieces of code; when you put them together, you can create different types of text on a page. We’ll discuss a few elements in more detail in the coming lessons. For now, here’s a list of common elements with the opening tags listed (remember, the closing tags will be the same as the opening but will add a backslash before the element designation):

• Headers: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc.
• Paragraphs: <p>
• Bold text: <strong>
• Italic text: <em>
• Lists: <ol> for ordered (numbered) lists, <ul> for unordered (bulleted) lists, <li> for each list line
• Tables: <table> encompasses the entire table, <tr> for table row, <th> for table header, <td> for table data
• Links: <a> means “attribute” and creates anchor text for you to add a link

If you’re confused, don’t worry. We’ll talk more about these elements and how to use them in the coming chapters. Consider this page a touchstone. If you’re testing out some of this code for yourself and you forget the element, you can use this page as a quick refresher.

Ready to start writing some code? You can do it! We’ll start with the bulk of every webpage: headers and body text.