### 22.1 Deciding which type of output to produce

If you can choose between HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, consider XHTML. If you might eventually move to XML, the XHTML 1.0 Recommendation is a good way to make a transition into that area:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

According to the W3C, XHTML 1.0 “defines an XML serialization for HTML 4”. Also, HTML 5 uses XML syntax; see:

http://dev.w3.org/html5/html4-differences/Overview.html

For HTML 5 output, you will be concerned mainly with providing an appropriate value for DOCTYPE; see §22.4.1 Specifying HTML/XML version, DOCTYPE, and DTD.

Unless otherwise indicated, settings for HTML apply also to XHTML, to XML, and to HTML-based Help systems.

Electronic books

If your output is destined for electronic books, XHTML provides input to third-party ePub production tools. The ePub format is basically XHTML with some icing. To produce ePub, you can use DITA2Go XHTML output as input to Calibre, which is free:

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Internet browsers

If your output will be displayed on the Web, consider the differences among browsers. If you use CSS (see §31. Setting up CSS for HTML), some browsers, such as Mozilla, do not display XHTML output properly on the Web; they ignore your CSS files. However, these browsers properly display the same XHTML output viewed locally, and properly display standard HTML output both locally and on the Web.

Previous Topic: 22. Converting to HTML/XHTML

Next Topic: 22.2 Setting up an HTML project

Parent Topic: 22. Converting to HTML/XHTML

Sibling Topics:

22.2 Setting up an HTML project

22.3 Including starting code and entity references

22.4 Supplying values for the <head> element

22.5 Specifying HTML <body> attributes

22.6 Specifying document-wide properties for HTML

22.7 Defining text colors for HTML

22.8 Importing HTML files as insets

22.9 Providing hover text for links in HTML

22.10 Generating XHTML for Confluence 4.x

22.11 Exporting content for database input

22.12 Specifying a starting topic for HTML or XHTML

22.13 Using framesets

22.14 Passing W3C validation tests