HTML vs Text: Difference and Comparison

HTML and Text are commonly used webpage developers used by developers to create sites.

They are the most common file formatting tools and are easy to use once a person gets the hang of it.

They come with features that are either simple or even complicated to understand.

Key Takeaways

1. HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, structures and formats content on the web, while the text is a simple, unformatted string of characters.
2. HTML includes images, links, and interactive elements, but the text is limited to plain characters and basic formatting.
3. Web browsers render HTML content into visually appealing web pages, whereas text files display plain text without any formatting.

HTML vs Text

HTML is a markup language for creating web pages and other digital content. It also allows for the inclusion of multimedia content, such as videos and audio files. Text is a plain, unformatted type of digital content that contains only characters, numbers, and symbols and is used for simple documents.

HTML is a more recent webpage developing tool that is yet to be used by everyone due to its difficulty in understanding the methods to write up any particular paragraph or even a plain heading.

It involves many elements that must be added while creating the webpage. In recent times, experienced professionals use it to create web pages for others.

Text, more commonly called Plain Text,, is an old text formatting tool that has been present since computers started webpages.

It is not difficult to use as the codes are in a plain human-understandable language without many additional elements to create confusion. There aren’t many advanced features in it to generate difficulty while typing, and it is simple in its terms.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	HTML	Text
Different Fonts and Sizes	Yes	No
Presence of Tags	Yes	No
Can Check How the Pages Are Displayed	Yes	No
Used Only For Internet	Most of the time	No, used for many other file types too
Easy to Use	No	Yes

What is HTML?

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language.

The name suggests that it is a markup language used for creating web documents and sites.

Since the advancement of technology and the increase in the number of people taking up the IT field, HTML has been in high use.

Now it could be seen as the primary website creation language with many advantages once it is learned.

Once the basic outline and the content that a person wants in their webpage have been laid out, they can quickly type it into an HTML document.

After it has been typed, the webpage’s template is transmitted in a series of technical forms to form the actual website on the browser.

This page could then be shared with links to others and searched on a search engine with the help of keywords.

A significant advantage of HTML is that it allows users to format their content how they want.

It has as many font and size options as Microsoft Word and, therefore, can create visually attractive web pages.

It also provides options to change the font’s colour and the background’s coloured.

This added feature to other older webpage creators is a substantial overshadowing factor of HTML.

The alignment of the text could also be changed multiple times in a single HTML document.

A drawback of the older version of HTML is that it doesn’t allow the insertion of video or audio files in a webpage.

But that problem could be overcome with the help of a reference file from some other website, and the link could be added to the webpage that is being created.

HTML needn’t necessarily be opened in any specific app or formatting tool. It could be typed up or opened anywhere, like Notepad.

The major drawback while typing an HTML document is that it needs tags for everything.

Even for opening or closing a specific paragraph, tags are necessary.

All the data that a single paragraph holds is kept between tags.

What is Text?

Text is the most common file or web creator. It is also the oldest present.

Since the beginning of the network era and the web pages and websites, Text has been in use.

Its ease of use due to its primary and standard formatting methods encourages people to use it more.

The text allows users to type up long sentences that needn’t have any further complications in the form of additional punctuation.

So it is a line of ASCII characters typed in a form understandable to humans.

That is, it includes no coding or technical element other than plain text.

The text doesn’t allow the formatting of text in the form of changing the font, size,, or even the colour of the text and background.

This is a significant drawback, as people like their files and documents to be attractive and colourful.

The closest it gets to formatting in the text is the use of space and indentation to create a proper sentence and a tab for typing in the following line.

Images couldn’t be added directly to the text document, but a link from a browser could be added to the record.

This link could redirect the user to the intended image.

Text is used in many files and for multiple uses as it doesn’t have a restriction for web documents alone.

Text documents can be read from any file formatting tool as they can be opened in any app or program without issue.

Main Differences Between HTML and Text

1. While HTML allows users to format with fonts, sizes, and even colour, Text doesn’t allow such privileges.
2. Text doesn’t have any other punctuation to be added in while typing while HTML has tags that need to be added in every statement’s start and end.
3. HTML allows the user to decide how a page might look before finalizing it as a webpage, while Text doesn’t have such features.
4. Text has been in use since the time of computers, while HTML is a more recent one.
5. Text has no complications while using whereas in the case of HTML, if a person isn’t trained, it might be difficult.

References

1. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/775152.775182
2. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781503602342/html

Last Updated : 30 June, 2023