The basic HTML tags fall generally into four categories:

1. Structure - these define the basic HTML document
   
   
2. Text Formatting - these define the appearance of the text: color, font face, size, bold, italic, underline, etc.
   
   
3. Text Layout - these define the general layout of the text: line breaks, paragraphs, bullets, numbering, etc.
   
   
4. Multimedia - these allow you to include images, movies, sound, etc.