I understand that <meta charset="utf-8"> declares the character encoding of the document to be UTF-8.
According to the HTML specs <meta charset="utf-8"> is not mandatory and the only allowed charset for HTML5 is UTF-8 anyways. So leaving it out does not hold back any useful information in an HTML5 document.
Regardless of whether a character encoding declaration is present or not, the actual character encoding used to encode the document must be UTF-8.
However, almost every resource on HTML5 urges to use the tag despite it being redundant and unnecessary with regards to the specs.
Is there any reason to use it?
Related
So what is the best way to define? Thanks!
<meta charset='utf-8'>
or
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=utf-8'>
or
<meta http-equiv='charset' content='utf-8'>
The first option, <meta charset='utf-8'>, is preferred, primarily because it's shortest.
Note that the charset declaration should be the first child of the <head>, before any user-controlled content. (in particular, before the <title>)
They are equivalent in HTML5, but I'd recommend using the first form, because it's shorter and easier to remember and was designed for backwards compatibility with older browsers, even in Internet Explorer 6 (see).
The best, and recommended, way is to specify the character encoding (“charset”) both in a Content-Type HTTP header and in a meta tag or, in the case of UTF-8, using a Byte Order Mark at the start. Note that any conflict between the HTTP header and a meta tag is resolved in favor of the HTTP header.
It is much less relevant which of the two forms of meta you use, but the shorter is safer (less opportunities for mistyping or copy error).
References: Specifying the document's character encoding in HTML5 CR and W3C page Character encodings.
The third tag mentioned in the question, <meta http-equiv='charset' content='utf-8'>, is invalid and has no effect. (The W3C validator says: “Bad value charset for attribute http-equiv on element meta.”)
the best way to define the Meta Charset follows:
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=utf-8'>
The TAG above is the more complete.
http://www.w3.org/International/O-HTTP-charset.pt-br.php
When I type Korean in my html code and open it through my browser, Korean is not recognized by the browser and prints some weird words. What shall I do?
There must be few mistakes you are making.
First, You should have a doctype specified on your HTML page. Use HTML5 doctype
<!DOCTYPE html>
Second, you should specify the character encoding of the document as well. So, add:
<meta charset="utf-8" />
In your head section. Or for a longer version with better cross browser compatibility use:
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=utf-8'>
Also as Juhana said, your file must be saved with same encoding (i.e. Unicode UTF-8) to be able to store Unicode characters and display them.
I just validated an HTML document using the W3C validator, and found that if I use:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
with:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
It throws a warning Line 4, Column 72: Using windows-1252 instead of the declared encoding iso-8859-1.
However, it is fixed if I use:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
I don't really understand what is happening. Also, I don't even know how to use the DOCTYPE tag, I just copied and pasted one from around the web.
Why does this happen?
How should I use the DOCTYPE tag?
Changing the DOCTYPE is simply turning off the warning - it isn't actually fixing anything.
iso-8859-1 and windows-1252 are very similar encodings. They differ only in the characters associated with the 32 byte values from 0x80 to 0x9F, which in iso-8859-1 are mapped to control characters and in windows-1252 are mapped to some useful characters such as the Euro symbol.
The control characters are useless in HTML, and web authors often mistakenly declare iso-8859-1 and yet use one or more of those 32 values as if they were using windows-1252, so browsers when they see the iso-8859-1 charset being declared will automatically change this to be windows-1252.
The validator is simply warning you that this will happen. If you're not using any of the 32 byte values, then you can simply ignore the warning - it's not an error. If you are, and you genuinely want the iso-8859-1 interpretation of the byte values and not the windows-1252 interpretation, you are doing something wrong.
Again, this switching happens in browsers for any DOCTYPE, it's just that the HTML5 validator is being more helpful about what it is telling you than the HTML4 validator is.
A couple of points:
Any HTML5 validation should be taken with a grain of salt. The specification is still under active development, and not everything is set in stone.
You're using the HTML4 syntax for that meta tag. Try <meta charset="iso-8859-1">
That said, HTML validators don't serve that much purpose in this day and age.
But apparently the default for HTML4 was iso=8869-1. That said, the default charset for HTML5 is UTF-8.
More information about the HTML5 doctype can be found in this post by John Resig.
It throws a warning Line 4, Column 72: Using windows-1252 instead of the declared encoding iso-8859-1.
It means the file was saved with the encoding Windows-1252 on creation (AKA Western Windows 1252 or CP1252) and your charset declaration says "hey read this file with ISO 8859-1" when that's not the encoding the file has.
The meta charset exist for that reason. It exist to declare the encoding of the file you are sending/reading/using so when, for example a browser, reads the document it knows what encoding the file is using.
In detail, you have this charset declared:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
But the file you are validating is actually encoded in Windows-1252. How? Why? Check the text editor you are using and what encoding it is using to save files. If the editor can be configured to change the encoding, choose the one you want to use.
About HTML5
Using
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
or
<meta charset="iso-8859-1">
are both valid for HTML5. See <meta charset="utf-8"> vs <meta http-equiv="Content-Type">
The W3C validator offers options for which encoding the validator uses. You have specified encoding in your document, so you should see "Encoding: iso-8859-1" in the top block of information once the validator has been run.
To the right of that, there is a pull-down menu. Change the choice from "(detect automatically)" to "iso-8859-1 (Western European)". The validator will then use ISO 8859-1 instead of its own choice, and you will not receive the error.
Do the following:
ISO 8859-15. Yeah, -15, and it will work.
Don't place too much stock in the validators. There are typically too many Internet Explorer workarounds, particularly in the CSS content, that will trip up the validator. If your pages work in all browsers and your client is happy, it doesn't matter what some validator says.
If you are specifying the HTML5 doctype, then you should be consistent with the meta charset attribute. Try this though for your pages:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
i like the new doctype that is being used
<!DOCTYPE html>
and the utf-8 which is
<meta charset="utf-8">
what are a few others that is being used under html5 based on your experiences?
also wondering if this new doctype html takes care of any doctype does it just guess what is being used?
also how and when do i use another charset rather than utf-8 ? thanks
The doctype works because browsers don't actually care what doctype you use and never followed the URL, they just check that the document specifies at least so that they don't render in quirks mode. If you're using the XHTML5 serialisation then you can provide a URL as you used to, though you're unlikely to use XHTML5 in the real world.
You probably don't want to create new pages in anything but utf8, if you do have data that is encoded separately and you can't/won't convert it into utf8 then you can specify a different encoding with <meta charset="charsetname"> where charsetname is an alias or name registered with IANA
The spec lists some meta tags that you can use. Basically the main one is still <meta name="description" value="This page is about foo">
I'm trying to write a website in Slovak language (central Europe). What I have done is put these two meta tags into the header:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-2" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="sk" />
The problem is all characters with diacritique are substituted with garbage characters (so the encoding I not working obviously). What to do?
Here is the whole beginning of the page:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="sk" lang="sk">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-2" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="sk" />
When you save the file you have to make sure that it's created with the same encoding that you have specified in the meta tag.
I recommend that you use utf-8 instead of iso-8859-2. The unicode character set supports all characters in practically every language that exists (and even some that don't...).
There are two issues at work here.
Language
Character encoding
Language
The Content-Language HTTP header describes the natural language of the intended audience. This may not be the same as the language the document is actually written in. Use the lang attribute to describe that.
Character encoding
This allows you to represent the letters that you wish to use. You need to make sure that your text really does use the selected encoding and that the browser is informed that that is the encoding you are using.
Select a character encoding (UTF-8 is generally the best choice, it covers just about every character you could possibly want to use and saves you having to switch encodings for different languages), see http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/tutorial-char-enc/
Ensure your editor saves using that encoding
Ensure your server specifies that it is using that encoding
Ensure that nothing mangles the encoding between the editor and server (such as by being inserted into a database that is configured to use a different encoding)
HTTP headers
NB: Your question mentions <meta http-equiv>. Real HTTP headers are the better place to specify this information, and they will override whatever your document claims. Make sure your server is configured correctly.
XHTML
XHTML complicates matters…
Use xml:lang in addition to lang
Don't use anything except UTF-8. If you do, then you must specify this in the XML declaration (and adding an XML declaration will trigger Quirks mode in some browsers).