I am writing to ask about W3C markup validator and how important it is to my web site. We built the site with MS FrontPage (apparently horrible thing) and have it working. The W3C validator show 14 errors on the index page and says: This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

Having almost no knowledge of HTML writing or understanding about the 14 errors, I am asking if there is a simple way to fix this or if it even matters. I'd include all the errors but imagine many of you are familiar with this issue and already know what most of the errors are. If it's just to ugly to work with or address FrontPage sites, I'll understand. Perhaps someone can suggest a solution for us or places to look if this validation is a big problem.

Thank you for any response you wish to offer,

jim & irene
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Please first note that we do not support wysiwyg questions. (also, no links you posted will be seen by any search engine, it's all blocked, log out and then look at your posting again and you'll see).

However, since you also asked a general question about w3c validation and markup, I'll answer that question for you.

You will never get Frontpage to produce error free HTML, without doing a series of major system hacks, and learning a lot about html, at which point you'll probably want to throw Frontpage away anyway.

So forget that angle. As to your real question, for users like you, first of all, do not use xhtml in any form. That's a waste of time. Nothing is sillier than producing xhtml that is filled with errors, actually, with any errors at all, it entirely defeats the purpose of using it. So if you've heard of it and think it's somehow better, that's not true.

Use the most permissive html type, html 4.01 loose, always. There is no point in using anything else for average users with no idea of html.

Now, in answer to your actual question, if you do not have these already, download the following browsers:

Opera
Firefox
Safari for windows

I am assuming you are using Windows. Now test your pages in these three. If they work in those, they will work for about 99.9% of your site's pages visitors. That's good enough.

Validation does not matter for users like you, it will not change anyone's experience, it will not make your pages work better, since you don't know html anyway.

Validation does have some uses, it helps avoid layout errors, it helps catch html bugs, since you can find where you made such errors, but for you, it doesn't matter. If anyone tells you otherwise they don't know what they're talking about. It's nice if you can get your pages to validate, but with frontpage that will never happen anyway.

Dreamweaver mx is significantly better, and might actually produce valid code, that will work on all browsers. Frontpage, because it acts like most microsoft junk and tries to pretend that the internet is only a microsoft world running internet explorer, tends to produce totally useless code that often doesn't work on any other browsers, which is why we won't support it in any way, shape, or form.
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