Choosing a DOCTYPE

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Choosing a DOCTYPE

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

While using Microsoft FrontPage, you might have never even thought about using a DOCTYPE or even heard of this "declaration". Now though, you might have seen this a time or two if you have looked at the source code once you created a new web page with Expression Web. Instead of seeing something like

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; 
charset=windows-1252">
<title>New Page 1</title>
</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

you might have seen

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html> 
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled 1</title>
</head>

<body>

</body>

</html>

While it may appear that Expression Web is adding some unwanted code, an all too familiar problem with FrontPage, the declaration of a DOCTYPE is an essential component of compliant web pages. Actually though, if you are one of those type of people that validates your code, then you probably will appreciate this "extra" piece code.

You have a few DOCTYPEs to choose from as you can see from the Recommended List of DTDs.

So which one to choose? And why should I choose one over the other? And is the latest DOCTYPE the best one to use? Does Expression Web add the correct DOCTYPE? Should I even both with a DOCTYPE if I am not going to validate the code?

Those are very good questions. Some of these questions have been "pondered" on numerous message boards in the past by a lot of individuals giving very good reasons it seems to use one over the other. For a great article, check out Fix your Site with the Right DOCTYPE. This will answer some of the questions above. If you have more questions on which DOCTYPE to use or why, please feel free to ask the professionals at International Web Developers Network.

For the most part, HTML 4.01 DTD will satisfy a lot of the FrontPage / Expression Web users. And Expression Web will put in the proper DTD code for you when you have decided on which one to use.

Choosing a DOCTYPE

To have Expression Web place the proper code in your web page, Tools - Page Editor Options. In the Authoring tab, you will see a section labels Doctype and Secondary Schema. Under Document Type Declaration, choose HTML 4.01 Transitional and hit OK. (Video tutorial on Choosing the DOCTYPE in Expression Web)

Page Editor Options

Now in all new web pages created with Expression Web, you will see

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

at the top of your source code.

As the terminology implies, "loose" (or transitional) will be a bit easier to validate than "strict". The validator will give you a little bit of latitude. Whatever you choose, Expression Web will try to produce source code that complies with the standards. You will, of course, find problems from time to time but you will see more problems if you do not choose a DOCTYPE, especially in some versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

As the article from A List Apart (Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!) mentions, some Internet browsers will display your web page in quirks mode if a DOCTYPE is not used.

Amazon also has a few HTML Books that you might find very informative as well. Some people like to be able to read books and most HTML Books will give you the basics you need to know to help you huild and maintain your Expression Web site.