HTML5

Abstract

This specification defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.

Status of This document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

The W3C HTML Working Group is the W3C working group responsible for this specification's progress. This specification is the 28 October 2014 Recommendation.

If you wish to make comments regarding this document in a manner that is tracked by the W3C, please submit them via our our public bug database (open bugs). If you cannot do this then you can also e-mail feedback to public-html@w3.org (subscribe, archives), and arrangements will be made to transpose the comments to our public bug database. All feedback is welcome.

A comprehensive test suite for this specification is maintained and kept up to date as part of the WebPlatform Tests project. Please see the Working Group's implementation report.

Work on evolutions of this specification proceeds at http://www.w3.org/TR/html/. The HTML5 Recommendation represents a milestone in the development of HTML but far from being the end of the road and improvements are already well under way. It is possible that future versions will no longer be published as a monolithic specification but rather as a set of smaller modules. Irrespective of whether that is the case or not, http://www.w3.org/TR/html/ will be maintained as the entry point to the entirety of HTML technology.

Work on extending this specification typically proceeds through extension specifications which should be consulted to see what new features are being reviewed.

The bulk of the text of this specification is also available in the WHATWG HTML Living Standard, under a license that permits reuse of the specification text.

This document has been reviewed by W3C Members, by software developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and is endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited 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.

Work on this specification is also done at the WHATWG. The W3C HTML working group actively pursues convergence of the HTML specification with the WHATWG living standard, within the bounds of the W3C HTML working group charter. There are various ways to follow this work at the WHATWG:

• Commit-Watchers mailing list (complete source diffs): http://lists.whatwg.org/listinfo.cgi/commit-watchers-whatwg.org
• Annotated summary with unified diffs: http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker
• Raw Subversion interface: svn checkout http://svn.whatwg.org/webapps/

The following editorial changes were made since Proposed Recommendation:

• The manner in which updates to this specification will be published was clarified.
• The IANA registration for application/xhtml+xml was accepted during PR, leading to a small update to the corresponding section.
• "Decoder error" was mistakenly listed as a URL-related definition when it is in fact Encoding-related
• "Parsed URL" has been given a proper mapping to the URL specification
• Improved the informative summary for several elements. (Mostly pointers to tag omission and ARIA rules.)
• Updated a few references to documents that have seen new revisions (RFC4281, RFC2313, RFC3490, MPEG-DASH) and provided a more stable link to BECSS.
• Added a note about and made some modifications to the URL reference.
• A number of small styling tweaks were made and typos were fixed.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document is governed by the 14 October 2005 W3C Process Document.

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