Comparison of document markup languages
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of document markup languages. Please see the individual markup languages' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.
General information
Basic general information about the markup languages: creator, version, etc.
| Creator | First public release date | Latest stable version | Editor | Viewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DocBook | Norman Walsh | ? | 4.4 | ? | ? (For printing) |
| HTML | Tim Berners-Lee | 1993 | 4.01 | Text editor, HTML editor | Web browser |
| RTF | Microsoft | 1987 | 1.8 | Text editor, Word processor | Word processor |
| XHTML | W3C | January 26, 2000 | 1.1 | Text editor, HTML editor | Web browser |
| Creator | First public release date | Latest stable version | Editor | Viewer |
Characteristics
Some characteristics of the markup languages.
| Major purpose | Based on | Markup type | Structural markup | Presentational markup 1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DocBook | Technical document | SGML / XML | Tag | Yes | ? |
| HTML | Hypertext document | SGML | Tag | Yes | Yes |
| RTF | Rich text document | Control code | Yes | Yes | |
| XHTML | Hypertext document | XML | Tag | Yes | No |
| Major purpose | Based on | Markup type | Structural markup | Presentational markup |
Note (10): Many markup languages have purposely avoided presentational markups. For markup languages based on SGML and XML, CSS is as a presentation layer.