HTML 4.0 Specification
W3C Recommendation, revised on 24-Apr-1998

This version: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424 
Latest version: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40 
Previous version: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40-971218 
Editors: 
Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> 
Arnaud Le Hors <lehors@w3.org> 
Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org> 
Abstract
This specification defines the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), version 4.0, the publishing language of the World Wide Web. In addition to the text, multimedia, and hyperlink features of the previous versions of HTML, HTML 4.0 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, style sheets, better printing facilities, and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. HTML 4.0 also takes great strides towards the internationalization of documents, with the goal of making the Web truly World Wide. 

HTML 4.0 is an SGML application conforming to International Standard ISO 8879 -- Standard Generalized Markup Language [ISO8879].

Status of this document
This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web. 

W3C recommends that user agents and authors (and in particular, authoring tools) produce HTML 4.0 documents rather than HTML 3.2 documents (see [HTML32]). For reasons of backwards compatibility, W3C also recommends that tools interpreting HTML 4.0 continue to support HTML 3.2 and HTML 2.0 as well. 

A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR. 

Public discussion on HTML features takes place on www-html@w3.org. 

This document is a revised version of the document first released on 18 December 1997. Changes from the original version are only editorial in nature. 

Available formats
The HTML 4.0 W3C Recommendation is also available in the following formats: 

A plain text file: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.txt (735Kb), 
A gzip'ed tar file containing HTML documents: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.tgz (357Kb), 
A zip file containing HTML documents (this is a '.zip' file not an '.exe'): 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.zip (389Kb), 
A gzip'ed Postscript file: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.ps.gz (600Kb, 367 pages), 
A PDF file: 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/html40.pdf (2.1Mb) file. 
In case of a discrepancy between electronic and printed forms of the specification, the electronic version is the definitive version. 

Available languages
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. However, for translations of this document, see http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/translations.html.

Errata
The list of known errors in this specification is available at: 
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/REC-html40-19980424-errata.html 
Please report errors in this document to www-html-editor@w3.org.