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<!--#set var="title" value="About the W3C Markup Validation Service"
--><!--#set var="relroot" value="./"
--><!--#include virtual="header.html" -->
<div class="doc">
<div><a id="skip" name="skip"></a>
<h2>About The W3C Markup Validation Service</h2>
<h3 id="TableOfContents">Table of contents</h3>
<div id="toc">
<ol>
<li><a href="#about">About this service</a></li>
<li><a href="#others">Other resources</a></li>
<li><a href="#credits">Credits</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
<h3 id="about">About this service</h3>
<p>
The <a href="./">Markup Validator</a> is a free service by
<acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>
that helps check the validity of Web documents.
</p>
<p>
Most Web documents are written using <em>markup languages</em>, such as
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> or
<acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym>.
These languages are defined by <em>technical specifications</em>, which
usually include a machine-readable <em>formal grammar</em> (and vocabulary). The act of checking
a document against these constraints is called <a href="docs/help.html#validation_basics"
title="Introducing and defining the concept of Markup Validation">validation</a>, and this
is what the Markup Validator does.
</p>
<p>
Validating Web documents is an important step which can dramatically help improving
and ensuring their quality, and it can save a lot of time and money (read more on
<a href="docs/why.html" title="Why validate? A document answering questions on the importance of validation." >why validating matters</a>).
Validation is, however, neither a full <a href="docs/help.html#validandquality">quality
check</a>, nor is it strictly equivalent to <a href="docs/help.html#validandconform"
title="Read more about the difference between validation and conformance checking"><em>checking for conformance</em></a> to the specification.
</p>
<p>
This validator can process documents written in most markup languages.
Supported document types include the <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
(through <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> 4.01) and
<acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> (1.0 and 1.1) family,
MathML, SMIL and <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym>
(1.0 and 1.1, including the mobile profiles). The Markup Validator can
also validate Web documents written with an <a href="docs/sgml.html"
title="introduction to the concepts of SGML and DTDs"><acronym title="Standard Generalized
Markup Language">SGML</acronym> or <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>
<acronym title="Document Type Definition">DTD</acronym></a>, provided they use a proper
document type declaration.
</p>
<p>This validator is also <q cite="https://www.cs.tcd.ie/15445/15445.HTML#SYSVALID">An HTML validating system conforming to International Standard ISO/IEC 15445—HyperText Markup Language, and International Standard ISO 8879—Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)</q> – which basically means that in addition to W3C recommendations, it can validate according to these ISO standards.</p>
<p>
Related resources include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="docs/">Documentation</a> for the Markup validation
contains a lot of information on usage, installation, and development. Notably,
the <a href="docs/help.html">Help and <acronym title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</acronym></a>
document contains a lot of information, and is a recommended reading.</li>
<li>The <a title="Source Code for The W3C Markup Validation Service"
href="source/">Source code availability</a> information page .</li>
<li><a href="todo.html">The development roadmap</a> for this service.</li>
<li><a href="feedback.html">How to provide feedback on The
<acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>
Markup Validation Service</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3 id="others">Other resources</h3>
<div>
<h4>Documentation & Specifications</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/"><acronym
title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>'s
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
home page</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/">The <acronym
title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> 4.01
specification</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/"><acronym
title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> 1.0:
The Extensible HyperText Markup Language</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/"><acronym
title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> 1.1:
Module-based <acronym
title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym></a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<h4>Online Tools & Other Validators</h4>
<p>In addition to this validator, the W3C is offering a number of other tools
to help you check other types of documents (CSS, RDF, P3P, ...), find broken links
in your Web pages, and so on. All these tools are listed on the W3C's
<a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/"><acronym title="Quality Assurance">QA</acronym>
Toolbox</a>.</p>
<p>There are also many excellent tools developed outside W3C to help
improve the quality of Web pages:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tidy.sourceforge.net/"><acronym
title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> tidy</a>, originally developed at
W3C, is a program that can help automatically clean up HTML pages.
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.validome.org/">Validome</a> offers a very reliable
validator for HTML, XHTML and WML, in different languages.</li>
<li>The <a
href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/"><acronym
title="Web Design Group">WDG</acronym>
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
validator</a> is another excellent online validation service.</li>
<li><a href="http://arealvalidator.com/">A Real Validator</a>
is a shareware <acronym
title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> syntax checker
for Windows systems, from the author of the <acronym
title="Web Design Group">WDG</acronym> validator.</li>
<li><a href="http://valet.webthing.com/">Site Valet</a> by Nick Kew
is a comprehensive set of Quality Assurance tools for checking and
monitoring your web sites.</li>
</ul>
<p>
The <acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym> also hosts
a number of other <a href="http://www.w3.org/Status">Open Source software projects</a>.
</p>
</div>
<h3 id="credits">Credits</h3>
<p>
The
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1994Jul/0015">first
online <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> validation
service</a> was created by
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/">Dan Connolly</a> and
<a href="http://www.markgaither.com/">Mark Gaither</a>.
</p>
<p>
The <acronym title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>
Markup Validation Service was created and maintained by
<a title="Gerald Oskoboiny's Home Page"
href="http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/">Gerald Oskoboiny</a>.
In a previous incarnation it was known as "The Kinder, Gentler,
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> Validator"
("Kinder, Gentler" than Dan and Mark's original),
but has since found a new home at <acronym
title="the World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>, and is now maintained
under the auspices of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/">Quality Assurance</a>
Activity.
</p>
<p>
This service uses:
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a> and many excellent open source
Perl modules (see list in <a href="docs/install.html#install-prereq">installation documentation</a>)</li>
<li>
A derivative version of <a href="http://www.jclark.com/">James
Clark</a>'s excellent <a href="http://www.jclark.com/sp/"><acronym
title="Standard Generalized Markup Language">SGML</acronym> (and
<acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>)
parser</a> <acronym title="SGML Processor">SP</acronym>. The
version in use for this service is the "OpenSP" version from
the <a href="http://openjade.sourceforge.net/">OpenJade</a> team.
For some time it also made use of
<a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/%7Eliam/">Liam Quinn</a>'s
modified version, lq-nsgmls.
</li>
<li>Documentation and Error Explanations originally written by Scott Bigham.</li>
<li>Interface and Design refinements by Valerio Proietti (and powered by <a href="http://mootools.net/">Mootools</a>)</li>
<li>
<p>Patches, Documentation and Ideas from:
<a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/">Aaron Swartz</a>,
<a href="http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de/">Björn Höhrmann</a>,
Brett Bieber,
Chris Lilley,
Christian Smith,
Christoph Päper,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/">Dan Connolly</a>,
<a href="http://dorward.me.uk/">David Dorward</a>,
<a href="http://www.tibbe-online.de/">David Tibbe</a>,
Etienne Miret,
Frank Ellermann,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Hugo/">Hugo Haas</a>,
Henri Sivonen,
Ian Hickson,
<a href="http://www.jibbering.com/">Jim Ley</a>,
<a href="http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/">Jukka Korpela</a>
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/karl/">Karl Dubost</a>,
<a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/%7Eliam/">Liam Quinn</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/D%c3%bcrst/">Martin Dürst</a>,
Moto Ishizawa,
<a href="http://www.webthing.com/~nick/">Nick Kew</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/olivier/">Olivier Thereaux</a>,
Patrick H. Lauke,
Roland W. Crowl,
Scott Bigham,
<a href="http://sierkbornemann.de/">Sierk Bornemann</a>,
<a href="http://www.webstandards.org/about/members/steph/">Steph Troeth</a>,
<a href="http://inamidst.com/sbp/">Sean B. Palmer</a>,
Shane McCarron,
Terje Bless,
Ville Skyttä,
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/">...and
the great user community on www-validator@w3.org.</a>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
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