To learn more about the HTML, read our HTML tutorial.

To learn more about the XHTML, read our XHTML tutorial.

HTML 2.0 was developed by Internet Engineering Task Force HTML Working Group in 1996.

HTML 2.0 is an outdated version of the HTML. All browsers available on the market today, rely on newer versions of the HTML. As a Web developer there is no need to study the HTML 2.0 standard.

HTML 3.2 was released as a W3C Recommendation 14. January 1997. HTML 3.2 added widely-deployed (Netscape) features such as fonts, tables, applets, text-flow around images, superscripts and subscripts, to existing HTML 2.0 Standard.

One of the element that was added to the 1997 HTML 3.2 standard - the <font> tag - have introduced unnecessary complexity to the important task of separating HTML content (text) from its presentation (style). The <font> tag is expected to be removed from future versions of the HTML. 

HTML 4.0 was released as the W3C Recommendation 18. December 1997. A second release was issued on the 24. April 1998 with only some editorial corrections.

The most important feature of the HTML 4.0 is the introduction of style sheets (CSS). 

Our W3C CSS chapter summarize the W3C CSS activities.

HTML 4.01 was released as the W3C Recommendation 24. December 1999.

HTML 4.01 is a minor update of corrections and bug fixes in the HTML 4.0.

W3C will not continue to develop HTML. Future W3C work will be focusing on the XHTML.

XHTML 1.0 reformulates the HTML 4.01 in XML.

XHTML 1.0 was released as the W3C Recommendation 20. January 2000.