MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

KevinH · 03-04-2021, 09:12 AM

Missing DOCTYPE
This was discussed numerous times here. According to the spec, a doctype is required for html5 and it says in the epub3 spec it inherits all structural rules of html5 unless explicit stated otherwise and a doctype exception is never listed.
As for epub2, the doctype is where named entities are specified in xhtml and therefore required, since Sigil allows a specific set of common named entities to be used.
And epubcheck has a few bugs related to whether to detect if a doctype is missing or not.

Sigil requires them based on the current epub 3.0.1, 3.1, and 3.2 spec. And because if a future epub spec allows us to use html (as is being discussed) adding a doctype will future proof things. Furthermore a doctype is universally accepted (nothing ever rejects an epub because it has a doctype).

BTW, those samples are old and use many things now deprecated and discouraged.

See this earlier post that cites the specs:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...6&postcount=40

03-04-2021, 09:12 AM	#20
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 9,053 Karma: 6361556 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Missing DOCTYPE This was discussed numerous times here. According to the spec, a doctype is required for html5 and it says in the epub3 spec it inherits all structural rules of html5 unless explicit stated otherwise and a doctype exception is never listed. As for epub2, the doctype is where named entities are specified in xhtml and therefore required, since Sigil allows a specific set of common named entities to be used. And epubcheck has a few bugs related to whether to detect if a doctype is missing or not. Sigil requires them based on the current epub 3.0.1, 3.1, and 3.2 spec. And because if a future epub spec allows us to use html (as is being discussed) adding a doctype will future proof things. Furthermore a doctype is universally accepted (nothing ever rejects an epub because it has a doctype). BTW, those samples are old and use many things now deprecated and discouraged. See this earlier post that cites the specs: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...6&postcount=40 Last edited by KevinH; 03-04-2021 at 09:27 AM.