Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 11/25/74 11:48

Chaddy2222 <rockradio2000@yahoo.com.au> scripsit:

> The document type decleration (DTD) tells the web browser what type
> the document is and what set of rules to use when displaying the
> website.

No it doesn't. The OP will find better answers by looking at the group
archives at http://groups.google.com . The issue has been discussed so many
times that people are tired of it, so you mostly get answers from people who
didn't bother checking things out either. Formally, the DOCTYPE declaration
refers to a DTD, but browsers don't really even read the DTD.

The short answer is that by not using a DOCTYPE declaration exactly as
specified in HTML specifications, you probably throw Internet Explorer and
some other browsers into "quirks mode", which means intentionally broken
(nonstandard) mode of operation. Google for "DOCTYPE sniffing" if you need
the dirty details.

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