To include a form in an HTML page, write the following code at the point in the document where the form is to appear:

<form>
   ... form control definitions ...
</form>

The FORM element is used to delimit, or set the bounds of, a data input form.

As mentioned earlier, the FORM element is a container for the other elements that are used to gather the input. There can be more than one form in a single document, but the FORM element can not contain another form.

The W3C HTML specification requires the <form></form> tags only when the contained controls are to be used for server-side processing, or when the form’s data set needs to be sent to the server for some action.

If the controls are to be used only on the client side (for instance, used just as simple elements for displaying data, or even to execute client-side only scripts), the FORM element need not be required; in these cases, form controls can supposedly appear outside of a FORM element declaration.

NOTE: Not all browsers, however, implement this recommendation. Specifically, Netscape Navigator^® requires the <form></form> tags before any form control can be rendered, so it is safer to use them all the time.

The FORM element requires both start and end tags.