HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a language that tells browsers how to present Web pages. HTML uses a header and tags to pass structure, formatting, hyperlink and form description information to the browser.
An HTML document can contain any of the following basic elements:
Headers
Paragraphs
Lists
Figures
Tables
Forms
Literal or Preformatted text
Mathematical formulae
Depending on the version of HTML used, an HTML document may contain many additional elements as well.
To make your COBOL program directly accessible from popular browsers, you can develop an HTML interface to replace your applications' current graphical or character-based front end. With an HTML interface, your application becomes immediately available to any user with a Web browser, regardless of the user's hardware or operating system platform. The only restriction is that the Web browser must be able to support the version of HTML you used to write your HTML document. See an HTML reference book for various solutions to this problem.
To develop an HTML interface to your COBOL program, you can use any of several HTML-authoring tools. Many are available over the Internet free of charge. If you choose to, you can use other languages like VB script or Java to develop your HTML interface.