To change an HTML page into an XHTML one, choose File ??? Convert ??? XHTML. The conversion is automatically
applied to the current document; no standard method exists to convert an entire site.
Because Dreamweaver has taken the pain out of using XHTML, the question is: Should you code in XHTML
or HTML? As in most situations, it depends. Many larger companies that work extensively in XML require
well-formed XHTML pages. Because it is the latest version of the Web??™s core language??”and recommended
by the W3C??”you??™ll be perfectly poised for the future. One aspect of the future is the proliferation of
Internet devices other than the computer: PDAs, cell phones, and set-top boxes, among others. For these
types of devices, XHTML is far more portable than HTML.
However, you should be aware that not all browsers render XHTML pages exactly the same as they do
HTML pages. The problems stem largely from older browsers (version 4 and earlier for both Internet
Explorer and Netscape). If the audience for your site is heavily dependent on older browsers, you should
probably stick with HTML for the time being; on the other hand, if the site??™s audience is fairly up-to-date
and forward-looking, code in XHTML.
CROSS-REF CROSS-REF
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Accessing the Code Directly 6
doctype and doctype Switching
The very first element of an HTML page??”even before the tag??”is, increasingly, a doctype declaration.
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