W3C html validator

Creating HTTP content-type fields

[Gordon2004]

Hey guys,

I'm a very new to HTML coding so please explain this very simply...

I'm trying to create valid HTML/XHTML pages, but I cannot ensure they are valid using the W3C online validator but it does not work as I don't have a HTTP content-type field. I get the following message:

"I was not able to extract a character encoding labeling from any of the valid sources for such information. Without encoding information it is impossible to validate the document. The sources I tried are:

The HTTP Content-Type field.
The XML Declaration.
The HTML "META" element"

Could someone explain how I add one. I know some editors put them in automattically for you, but I'm just using notepad. Should I upgrade to an editor?

[Paul in South Africa]

Try something like

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

depending on your content type.