Getting page to validate

leftmargin, topmargin and ul not allowed?

[RussellC]

I am trying to get my page to validate and I have come accross theses errors:

Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.

^Error: there is no attribute "LEFTMARGIN" for this element (in this HTML version)

^Error: there is no attribute "TOPMARGIN" for this element (in this HTML version)

^Error: there is no attribute "MARGINWIDTH" for this element (in this HTML version)

^Error: there is no attribute "MARGINHEIGHT" for this element (in this HTML version)

^Error: element "UL" not allowed here; possible cause is an inline element containing a block-level element

Anyone know how I use CSS or something else to position the page with no margins so the page will validate? Also, whats with the <ul> tag, can I not use it in certain areas? Thanks.

-Russell

[andreasfriedrich]

does a css style sheet have to have a document description header like a html page?

Every SGML document needs to contain a document type declaration. Since HTML is a SGML application this holds true for HTML documents as well. CSS is no SGML application so there is no document type declaration required.

and how important is it that your style sheet conforms to standards?

If you want browsers to understand your css code it is a good idea to conform to the css standard. There is really no difference to the fact that you conformed to the standards of the English language when asking those questions. Had you used some strange language standard of your own communication would have been next to impossible.

Itīs all up to you. You do not need to conform to anything but then you cannot expect anybody to understand you. If you do conform to standards there is a reasonable expectation that communication will be successful.

if it doesnt conform to standard does it effectively mean that the pages linked to that style sheet are not valid html?

The syntax of style data depends on the style sheet language. [w3.org ] The HTML document is valid HTML if it conforms to the HTML spec. The style sheet data are valid CSS if they conform to the CSS spec. Everybody and the browsers are happy if both conform to their respective standards.

Andreas

[g1smd]

[validator.w3.org...] also links to a CSS validator, which you should also use on your documents.