If you publish a blog using Blogger, you’ve probably noticed the tabs for HTML or Compose. You usually write a Blog post using the Compose view.

But, behind the scenes, Blogger is actually writing HTML code for you. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is the code behind everything you see on a web page.

Here is an example of why you need to know a little bit about HTML. This comes from a question on our Members’ Forum:

"When trying to publish today’s blog, I received the following message: HTML cannot be accepted: Closing tag has no matching opening tag:</em> What on earth does this mean, and how can I fix it?"

Here’s my answer:
HTML code always has an opening tag and a closing tag.  An opening tag is some code enclosed in angle brackets <xx>.  A closing tag is the same code enclosed in brackets, but with a / at the beginning to indicate it’s the end </xx>.

em is the code for Emphasis aka Italics.  So, if you see <em>This is in italics</em>  That means the words ‘this is in italics’ … will display in italics, or whatever your browser does to indicate Emphasis. 

So, "Closing tag has no matching opening tag:</em>"  means that the beginning <em> tag was missing.  This happens when you use the italic button while editing a blog post, and then after adding and deleting text, you mistakenly delete part of the code.

You can fix it by going into HTML view and finding the orphaned </em> and deleting it.  Then, you can redo any italics back in the Compose view.

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