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HTML doctype tag

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Table of contents

Description
Attributes
Events
Examples

Description

The HTML !DOCTYPE tag is the first thing that every HTML document should contain. The objective of this tag is to tell the browser what kind of document it's about to process.

For some versions you can find variants (Strict, Transitional and Frameset). These variants correspond to a same version, but have small differences. Usually for transitional DTDs you will find more tags and attributes available (e.g., deprecated tags and attributes in HTML 4.01 or the "target" attribute for the HTML a tag) and in Strict DTDs you will have to obey more rules. The Framset DTDs are used in pages with frames.

Here is a list of some !DOCTYPE declarations that you can use in your documents. We strongly recommend you to write XHTML code, if possible Strict (Note that XHTML 1.1 is a newer version of the XHTML 1.0 Strict).

HTML 2.0

Code begin <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">Code end

HTML 3.2

Code begin <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">Code end

HTML 4.01: Strict, Transitional and Frameset

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

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

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">Code end

XHTML 1.0: Strict, Transitional and Frameset

Code begin <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">Code end

XHTML 1.1

Code begin <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">Code end

MathML 1.01

Code begin <!DOCTYPE math SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/Math/DTD/mathml1/mathml.dtd">Code end

MathML 2.0

Code begin <!DOCTYPE math PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD MathML 2.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/dtd/mathml2.dtd">Code end

XHTML + MathML + SVG

Code begin <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/2002/04/xhtml-math-svg/xhtml-math-svg.dtd">Code end

SVG 1.0

Code begin <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-SVG-20010904/DTD/svg10.dtd">Code end

SVG 1.1: Full, Basic and Tiny

Code begin <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1 Basic//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11-basic.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1 Tiny//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11-tiny.dtd">Code end

Attributes

This tag does not have any attribute.

Events

There are no events defined for this tag.

See complete list and information about events in HTML

Bypass W3C declarations