Mark-up Services

HTML: What You Should Know

Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) is a globally acclaimed programming language that contains only text and can refer to multimedia, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for layout, and JavaScript for interactions. This format was developed decades ago for a transition to paperless content storage and dissemination.

HTML in Digital Publishing

The latest version is HTML 5, which has revolutionised web page design. It is widely used in publishing, as it easily aligns with today’s technological advancements.

The increasing number of small-screen content consumers demands a mobile-friendly format. Web design, appearance, searches, interactions, and sharing are important to content reachability. These can be formatted through HTML, which is predominantly used worldwide.

Advantages

HTML is free. Using it means considerable cost cuts. Production, updation, development, customisation, and distribution can be inexpensive.

HTML is optimal for search engines, browsers, and small-screen devices. Browsers support HTML more than other languages, so your content gets greater visibility. Content optimisation for browsers is also easier.

Search engines can easily access, read, and index the content in HTML formats. This semantic coding increases the accuracy of indexing by content rather than appearance. Mark-up tags improve page loading time and can boost the ranking of the content in search engine results. Enriched, interactive content can be easily shared and linked with data repositories. It allows selectable text and alternate texts for screen reader accessibility. The up-to-date linked content can include supplementary material and still have a smaller file size when compared to PDFs.

Why is HTML the Future of Publishing?

The digital revolution has changed the way scientists carry out their research and process and store their results. Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) and Portable Document Format (PDF) came into existence 15-20 years ago as alternatives to paper articles. Both have their place in publishing; however, HTML has increasingly become the standard for online use as it is more in tune with developments in the research process.

PDF is a wonderful format for print publishing and remains the preferred format for archiving and offline use. It has saved countless hours and dollars in publication management, from design to the printed page, and it has its own place as a design-to-press tool. However, the web is about searching, linking, chunking, and, increasingly in a mobile world, responsiveness. Users prefer the sharable and interactive aspects of HTML. 

HTML5 can transform user interaction with your content, thus making it more attractive. Bookmarking and sharing features make social media marketing much more easily. HTML digital books are just like printed books. It can be made accessible on all devices, reduce production time, are high in quality and effectiveness, cost less, and are better for our environment. With HTML workflows, one can store the content without third-party pipelines. Incorporating new functionalities is easier in HTML and can augment your user experience. Native multimedia usage, font embedding, and zoom control are features to note. Moreover, HTML can be encased within a desktop or mobile app and can work on both iOS and Android devices, making it very versatile. HTML has the potential to bring the industry together and forward. Invest in this mainstream format, and be ready to advance when new technology arises.

The rapidly changing industry requires in-depth knowledge to predict and prepare for future trends. Build future-ready publishing capabilities with HBK Digital publishing services that meet your business-specific and scalability requirements. 

What Is HTML?

HTML is a globally accepted programming language for formatting web pages. An HTML file typically contains only text, but it has the ability to reference images and multimedia, as well as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for layout and JavaScript for interactive functionality. The newest version is HTML5.

The elements of web pages such as the appearance of images, links, headings, text, and page layout can be formatted through HTML. While there are other web-programming languages and tools, like content management systems, HTML continues to be the predominant programming language for creating web pages. 

Advantages of Using HTML in Publishing

HTML has many advantages over other publishing options currently available:

1. It is search engine, browser, and mobile friendly.
2. HTML was specifically designed for screen viewing giving it a more pleasing on-screen appearance than the more printer focused PDFs.
3. It has enriched interactive content.
4. It is easy to share by link (even when a file is large).
5. It contains up-to-date and linked content.
6. It is linked with data repositories.
7. It can include supplementary material.
8. It has a smaller file size than PDFs allowing for a more direct translation of the content.
9. It uses progressive loading enabling access to the content as it’s viewed rather than waiting until everything is loaded.
10. It allows for selectable text, and even when text is rendered as an image, alternate text can be provided for screen readers. 

Search Engines Favour HTML

If the HTML code is clean and validated, an HTML-based article is the easiest format for search-engine crawlers to access and read.

First, HTML tells search engines’ searchbots, such as GoogleBot, to find items such as images, videos, scripts, and style sheets and to index the content. Having an article that is semantically coded could be the nudge your publishing needs to increase the ability and accuracy of indexing. (Semantic coding describes the content [e.g., a first-level heading] rather than the appearance [e.g., boldface]).

Second, the Meta tags in the HTML article give search engines information about your web page when they index it. Meta tags are little bits of text that describe your webpage’s content.

Finally, HTML5 allows for indexing of multimedia content, such as menus, audio, and video, with new mark-up tags. This reduces crawling time and improves page load time, which can boost your website in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

PDFs can be indexed by search engines, but they lack the tag structure that ranks content for target keywords. PDFs also are not effective for image search engine optimization (SEO).

Mobile Optimization with HTML

HTML is mobile friendly, which is important since there are many types of mobile devices. In contrast, it’s nearly impossible to provide a responsive design for a PDF opened using a mobile device. 

HTML content also brings people back to your site by allowing you to bookmark the URL for later review, share the link in SM, and it is easier to share via social media, which means your material can be freely promoted and shared by the public (earned media).

Furthermore, HTML content can be rendered quickly by users across devices. (Rendering occurs when the HTML coding is turned into what the user sees [e.g., “<b>” is set as boldface type].) If set up properly, users can still print the content to PDF if they wish to store it.

Another major advantage of HTML is that it is free. Unlike with some open source content management systems, you do not need to buy software or plugins, so you can save considerably on your website-development costs.

HTML can also be customised easily. There are more web-development tools (e.g., FrontPage, DreamWeaver) that allow to create HTML-based publishing content than for any other web-programming language. HTML is relatively inexpensive to produce and in many cases the cost of distribution (such as website dissemination, sharing, offline storage, and views) is ZERO.