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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>W3C HTML Validation Service User Manual</title>
<link rev="made" href="mailto:gerald@w3.org" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/base.css" />
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, Hypertext Markup Language, Validation,
W3C HTML Validation Service" />
<meta name="description" content="W3C's easy-to-use HTML validation
service, based on an SGML parser." />
<meta name="revision" content="$Id: users.html,v 1.1 2001-02-23 09:06:49 link Exp $" />
<meta name="modified" content="$Date: 2001-02-23 09:06:49 $" />
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000ee" vlink="#551a8b">
<h1><a href="http://www.w3.org/"><img align="left"
src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/WWW/w3c_home" height="48" border="0"
alt="W3C" /></a> HTML Validator User Manual</h1>
<p align="right" class="navbar">
<a href="about.html">About this service</a> |
<a href="whatsnew.html">What's new</a> |
<a href="source/">Source code</a> |
<a href="feedback.html">Feedback</a><br clear="right"/>
<a href="file-upload.html">Upload files</a> |
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/">www-validator
archives</a> |
<a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/">CSS validator</a> |
<a href="checklink">Link checker</a><br clear="right"/>
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/">HTML Tidy</a> |
<a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/">HTML home</a> |
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/">HTML 4.01</a> |
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/">XHTML 1.0</a>
<br clear="all" />
</p>
<div id="Quickstart" class="stb">
<h2>QuickStart</h2>
<p>
Just type (or Cut&Paste) the URL for the page you want to validate
into the text field on the form and press the "Validate this page"
button.
</p>
<p>
If you have a local file you want to validate, choose the "File Upload"
link from the navigation menu. Select the button labelled "Browse..."
(or something like that, depending on your browser) and choose the file
you want to upload in the usual manner for your OS.
</p>
</div>
<div id="Introduction" class="stb">
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>
The W3C HTML Validation Service is a web gateway to a well known SGML
parser called SP. SP will take your HTML and compare it to a set of
objective syntax rules called a "DTD", a Document Type Definition. This
way you can be sure your HTML is really valid and not just that it
conforms to some random programmer's idea of "nice" HTML. Note that
valid HTML does not guarantee that your pages will work ok in all
browsers. Most of them are severly broken and you may need to find
alternate ways of achieveing your goal.
</p>
<p>
When you send an URL to the W3C HTML Validation Service, it will fetch
that URL and feed it to the SGML parser. If you upload a file it'll get
fed directly into the SGML parser. We then take the output from the
SGML parser and format it nicely as HTML and send it back to your web
browser. The W3C HTML Validation Service isn't generating any of the
error messages; they are all generated by the underlying SGML Parser
which is checking your HTML against the actual standard for the version
of HTML you are using.
</p>
</div>
<div id="Options" class="stb">
<h2>The Options</h2>
<p>
In addition to the text field where you enter an URL -- or the file
selection field if you are uploading files -- there are a few
checkboxes that alter the behaviour of the validator. The options are:
</p>
<dl>
<dt>Show source input (<code>ss</code>)</dt>
<dd>
Displays the HTML source of the document you validated and links
error messages directly to lines in this output. Makes it easy to
see what's wrong.
</dd>
<dt>Show an outline of this document (<code>outline</code>)</dt>
<dd>
Will generate an outline of your document from the H1 - H6 elements.
For a properly formed document, this will be a nicely nested tree
structure. The visualization of your document's structure makes it
easier to see where you've skipped a heading.
</dd>
<dt>Show parse tree (<code>sp</code>)</dt>
<dd>
Shows you exactly how the SGML Parser read your document. Probably
best used only by advanced users as it deals with low-level SGML
constructs.
</dd>
<dt>exclude attributes from the parse tree (<code>noatt</code>)</dt>
<dd>Supress attributes from the parse tree to make it more readable.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div id="Calling" class="stb">
<h2>Calling the Validator</h2>
<p>
You can link directly to the Validator home page, or you can call the
Validator CGI program. The home page is <URL:<a
href="http://validator.w3.org/">http://validator.w3.org/</a>> at
the moment (and for the forseeable future) and the CGI program can be
reached at <URL:<a
href="http://validator.w3.org/check">http://validator.w3.org/check</a>>.
</p>
<p>
If you call the CGI program with extra path info matching "/referer"
(i.e. <URL:<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer">http://validator.w3.org/check/referer</a>>)
it will fetch the refering document and validate that. This means that
if you embed a link to that URL in your pages, following on that link
will send you the validation results for that page.
</p>
<p>
You can also link to the validation results for a specific page. You do
this by giving "check" an "uri" parameter pointing at the page you want
to validate. For example <URL:<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.example.com/">http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.example.com/</a>>
will validate the www.example.com home page.
</p>
<p>
The various options are listed above in the section
"<a href="#Options">The Options</a>" in paranthesis after the long
name. To add options to your links directly, append the options
separated by a semi-colon. For example <URL:<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.example.com/;ss;outline;sp">http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.example.com/;ss;outline;sp</a>>
will validate the example.com home page with "Show Source", "Outline" and
"Show Parse Tree" on, but "Exclude Attributes" off.
</p>
<p>
You may also see these separated by amperstands and equal-signs, but
this usage is deprecated and support may be removed at some time in the
future.
</p>
</div>
<div id="Interpret" class="stb">
<h2>Interpreting the results</h2>
<p>
Interpreting the error messages isn't quite what you'd call easy. The
error messages are generated in the context of a full SGML environment
which demands a somewhat higher level of technical detail then your
average HTML document. We're working on ways to make the error messages
more friendly, but for now feel free to email the
<a href="mailto:www-validator@w3.org">www-validator@w3.org</a>
mailinglist if you need help interpreting the results. This will have
the added benefit of letting us know which error messages are causing
the most trouble so we can fix those first. Please be as specific as
possible and include the <em>exact</em> error message and, preferably, an URL
we can validate to see for ourselves.
</p>
</div>
<div id="Installing" class="stb">
<h2>Installing a local Validator</h2>
<p>
You can download the Validator to tun on your own system, but it's not
recommended for average users as the process is rather complex and
involves obscure incantations on the command line. <tt>:-)</tt>
</p>
<p>
If you feel you're up to the task, you can find the information you need
in our <a href="devel.html">Developer Manual</a>.
</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
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