[Sigia-l] Word HTML - money were my mouth is (was When Shoulda Manual be Web-based?)

[Thomas Vander Wal]

On 3/3/03 7:45 PM, "Boniface Lau" <boniface_lau at compuserve.com> wrote:

>> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
>> Behalf Of Thomas Vander Wal
>> 
>>  
>> On 2/28/03 8:15 PM, "Boniface Lau" <boniface_lau at compuserve.com> wrote:
> [...]
>>> Mind you, web browsers do not require web pages with DTD
>>> declaration.  Unless Word acted up, Internet Explorer, Netscape
>>> Navigator, and Opera have no problem with the Word-produced HTML.
>> 
>> Ah, now you are hitting on the problem with Word.  Word concerns
>> itself with visual presentation.  It has done an admirable job
>> building good visual presentations of the information.  A Web
>> browser can show a visual presentation well, but that if far from
>> being a good Web page or good (X)HTML.
> 
> The issue was NOT on whether Word produced a "good" web page or
> (X)HTML.
> 
> The issue was whether Word produced a web page without HTML error.

I should have expected the classic Boniface response, which is to cut out
the section of the e-mail with the answer to your question then act like the
question was not answered.

The answer that you cut out is...

Word generated Web pages do not come close to validating to any (X)HTML DTD.
I know quite a few folks that believe if that what Word generates is not
(X)HTML because of this.

So nobody has to read between the lines,  Word does not create good (X)HTML,
it fails the test.  The test is validation.  Further Word does not create
proper semantic structure, which is a sign of good (X)HTML also.  If you use
valid (X)HTML as a step toward building accessible sites it flat out fails
validation.  The test it not if a browser can read poor (X)HTML, but if it
is valid.

Most Web browsers are built with some fault tolerance to show the content in
a browser.  Some browsers will attempt to show any garage markup that is
received.  As I pointed out earlier (X)HTML done properly can be used for
other purposes.  It is like buying wax fruit, it looks just like real apples
and oranges if you try and eat or cook with the wax fruit you soon find it
only looks good.  Word's attempt at markup can look correct in some
browsers, but that is where it stops.  It is not good (X)HTML.

All the best,
Thomas