Want to know the real deal about HTML and CSS? HTML and CSS are scripting languages used to create a web page and web applications. HTML provides web page structure, whereas CSS is mainly used to control web page styling. This article will discuss the significant differences between HTML and CSS.

What Is HTML?

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is used for creating web applications and websites. Below, we break the expansion down for better understanding:

  • HyperText: HyperText or “text wrapped within a text.” is very similar to a hyperlink, but contains an underlying text which, when clicked, initiates a redirection to a new webpage.
  • Markup language: A markup language needn’t be a programming language, but helps in applying formatting and layout to a text document. It helps create a more dynamic and interactive text content.

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Features of HTML

  • Considering it is one of the simplest languages to design and code a website, the language is not case-sensitive.

Example: <html> and <HTML> are both acceptable

  • For purposes of keeping the language usable on any platform, and HTML is not specific to any one operating system like Android OS or the iOS; instead HTML can run on nearly all the OS.
  • A Tree-structure is the basic aspect of HTML.  This allows a root HTML tag to continue as an element, while child elements which  are added at any point of the structure as head and the body tags.
  • HTML tags shall carry display information that can be used in Firefox, Chrome or any type of browsers
  • Very useful for adding images, and hyper images, videos as well as other web pages so as to render them user friendly.

What Is CSS?

  • Cascading Style Sheets, fondly referred to as CSS, is a simple design language intended to simplify the process of making web pages presentable.
  • CSS is designed to enable the separation of document content from document presentation, including elements such as font, layout, and colors.
  • The style definitions are usually saved in external .css files.

Features of CSS

CSS is critical for website design as it helps in separating the design from the content. This helps in better readability, flexibility in programming and accessibility.

  • CSS files are integrated in HTML documents thus:
  1. Internal CSS – is used as a style tag within the head tag. The advantage of this is the ability to style three or four elements
  2. External CSS- is used to add external CSS file by using the <link>tag and will be positioned in the head tag of the HTML file
  3. Inline CSS – can be counted as a better method to use as it will define properties  for a single tag like style attribute within any tag
  • One can use multiple selectors to access every element/group

Example: ID Selector(#),  universal selector (*)

  • Styling is defined as key value pairs, and is used to define the font-size for H1 in 24px, or default 32px.

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HTML Vs. CSS

HTML

CSS

HTML is a markup language used to create static web pages and web applications.

CSS is a style sheet language responsible for the presentation of documents written in a markup language.

Consists of tags surrounding content. For Example: 

<p>Welcome to Simplilearn</p>

Consists of selectors succeeded by a declaration mark. For Example:

header{

background-color: green;

HTML cannot be used in a CSS file.

CSS can be used in an HTML file.

It is used to build the structure of the web pages.

It is used to make web pages more presentable.

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Key Factors by Which HTML and CSS Differ

Dependency

Since HTML is a markup language to define the web pages structure or organization, the same format and syntax cannot be used in CSS sheets. On the other hand CSS is independent of HTML and will be usable with many of the markup languages which are XML-based.

Implementation

HTML is implemented to define the web page structure as well as structure.  However, when we consider CSS for the purpose of implementation, then it is specific to the design and presentation only.

Architecture

HTML relies on tags for structuring content and other elements of the web page. In contrast, CSS uses only selectors to declare block statement syntax.

Approach

HTML is primarily used to put the core content or basic content to display on a web page, by defining the color, font, size, background color, font type and similar functions. For CSS, the approach used is to determine the exact location of the content, that is, the layout, the design of the web page, the page style format and the other features.

  Support

The core strength of the HTML’s growth and becoming the default standard in web development has been the large community of the supporters who focus on developing different web page structures and revised approaches.  Undoubtedly, CSS does have a strong community of support as well as backup to ensure improvements in the web designing on an ongoing process.

The relationship between HTML as well as CSS is set with the ‘rel’ HTML and CSS

<link rel = “stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”main.css”/>

Alternatively, CSS can be linked using font-family property or a text editor changing the font –

H1 {

Font-family: Arial

}

Commenting in HTML and CSS

  HTML:  <! –This is a comment in HTML--  >

 CSS:  /*This is a CSS comment*/

Example

You can find below an example of how both HTML and CSS file looks like:

html-example-html-vs-css

The page will look like the image depicted below without the use of CSS:

output-html

Now let’s style the page using CSS and observe how a CSS file changes the look of a webpage:

css

output-css

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Pros and Cons of HTML

Pros

Cons

HTML is easy enough to write.

It can create only static and plain pages.

Every browser supports HTML language.

The security features in comparison aren't very good in HTML.

It’s easy to learn and use.

It isn’t as flexible as other web page developers like Dreamweaver.

It is fast to download because the text is compressible.

It has very limited styling capabilities.

Pros and Cons of CSS

Pros

Cons

CSS can set and update styles for many documents at once.

It is vulnerable.

No additional network requests to retrieve style information.

CSS is not yet uniformly supported by the browser.

CSS saves lots of time.

Confusion due to its many levels.

Easy maintenance is present. 

Slower page load time.

Conclusion

HTML and CSS are used for ease of creation of desirable web documents. After comparing HTML vs CSS over different factors, it can be concluded that both the language is necessary for creating attractive web pages.

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If you have any questions for us, please share them with us in the comments section, and our experts will answer them promptly. 

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