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HTML 3.2 Was Very Wrong!
The original HTML was never intended to contain tags for formatting a document. HTML tags were intended to define the content of a document, like this:<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
When tags like <font> and color attributes were added to the HTML 3.2 specification, it started a nightmare for web developers!
Development and maintaining of web sites where fonts and color information were added to every single HTML element, became a long and expensive process.
What is so Great About HTML 4.0?
In HTML 4.0 all formatting can be removed from the HTML document, and stored in a style sheet.Because HTML 4.0 separates the layout from the document structure, we have what we always needed: Total control of layout, without messing up the document content.
What You Should do About it
- Do NOT use presentation attributes inside your HTML elements
- Start using styles! Please read our CSS tutorial to learn about style sheets
- Do NOT use deprecated tags. Visit our HTML 4.01 Reference to see which tags and attributes that are deprecated
- Validate your HTML pages
Validate Your HTML Files
To validate an HTML document, a doctype declaration must be added.The doctype declaration is not an HTML tag; it is an instruction to the web browser about what version of the markup language the page is written in.
The doctype declaration refers to a Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD specifies the rules for the markup language, so that the browsers can render the content correctly.
The doctype declaration should be the very first thing in an HTML document, before the <html> tag.
HTML 4.01 Strict
This DTD contains all HTML elements and attributes, but does NOT INCLUDE presentational or deprecated elements (like font). Framesets are not allowed:| <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> |
HTML 4.01 Transitional
This DTD contains all HTML elements and attributes, INCLUDING presentational and deprecated elements (like font). Framesets are not allowed:| <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www...org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> |
HTML 4.01 Frameset
This DTD is equal to HTML 4.01 Transitional, but allows the use of frameset content:| <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www......org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd"> HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.0, HTML 4.01 Reference, HTML 4.01 Reference, HTML 4.01 Reference, HTML 4.01 Reference |