isitreal - 4:41 am on Aug 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

Almost every page I put out validates zero error when I deliver it to the client, if I maintain it it stays that way, if I don't, it doesn't. XHTML 1 strict, transitional, html 4.0 strict or transitional, it's pretty much as easy to do any of these as any other once you learn the rules for each, but 4 transitional is the easiest. The problem is dreamweaver, frontpage, etc, handcoding is the best way to learn how create error free html since you are creating the html, dreamweaver can be made to do this I've read but not tested, you need an extension 4eyes always recommends, can't remember its name.

Also of course any page that calls itself xhtml and is not delivered with xhtml mimetype is in fact an error filled page even though the validator says its valid, but that's another issue.

Usually most validation issues come down to fixing a very small number of errors, closing tags, alt=, and so on, and getting rid of the illegal characters that jump in if you copy and paste from word documents. I run all my client word documents through a ms word macro that replaces all illegal characters with real html character entities like —, “ and so on.

It takes a few days to get your first site error free, you just start at the first error on the validator, fix every occurance on the site using search and replace etc, revalidate, fix again, you'll find the 100 errors quickly vanish since many of them aren't actually errors once the first error is fixed.

Once you have your site error free you get the real payoff, which is the ability to actually be able to do code debugging using the validators, that can be a huge time saver on complex html/css.