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What HTML doctype do you use and why?
I'm currently using HTML 4.01 Transitional for my doctype at work because we are currently targeting a wide range of users and email clients.
What do y'all use and why?
I'm currently using HTML 4.01 Transitional for my doctype at work because we are currently targeting a wide range of users and email clients.
What do y'all use and why?
I switched to HTML5 "< !DOCTYPE html >" recently, it seems like some old tricks are just not needed anymore (like attribute class selectors like
td[class=classname]
).By the way, I am seeing quite a few emails coming form important companies and they are not using any DOCTYPE, just start with the html tag.
I've also considered switching to HTML5 but haven't tested it across the board to see if it'll hold up with all the email clients we have to support. Are the majority of your emails one or more columns?
As for not sending a DOCTYPE that's an interesting build. I have to wonder how that works with responsive elements? I guess it'd just pull whatever DOCTYPE the email client has?
Do you have to support any clients that are not covered by Litmus testing? You could easily play around in Litmus and try a different DOCTYPE.
I would say I mostly use multiple columns, so responsive and media queries are common in my templates.
In the end, you don't get a lot of benefit (if any) from switching to another DOCTYPE in emails, so you might stick to the one you already use to be on the safe side.
But if you do switch to another one, would love to hear your findings. I suspect you won't run into any troubles.
I am currently using Litmus and EOA to cover my basis. It's a balance seeing as my email builds have to be approved through Outlook 2010 and various mobile devices/apps before deployment. This is in addition to all the various web clients on the send lists.
Just FYI, Outlook 2003 can have weird rendering issues if DOCTYPE is missing. It might be moot since OL2003 is super old but its one more reason to not drop DOCTYPE even though some clients strip/ignore it anyways. Plus the US Navy just paid Microsoft millions of dollars so they can continue getting support for Office 2003 ;)
I've been using html5
< !DOCTYPE html >
for a while now, can't remember if I had any issues from the change over but everything is working now. I test in Litmus, EOA and our device lab.If you do switch over then test everything everywhere :)
Good to know! I think the biggest challenge will be re-evaluating how the emails are built. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I understand that some of the attributes we currently rely on in HTML4 are deprecated in HTML5.
However, no matter what, I'll be testing like there's no tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback! :)
It's true that some HTML4 attributes are deprecated but I've not found that to be an issue as although they're deprecated they are still supported (for now)...
This sums it up better than i could.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/html_401/html4-ref/article.php/3460291
I doubt you will need to change anything else than the doctype... everything should work as normal. Which raises I guess the question why change it in the first place... :)
Thanks Mark and Silviu for the info! I'm going to go ahead and work on a boilerplate with HTML5 and see if it'll translate well. I'll keep y'all updated on the results :)
I haven't had any problems using HTML5
< !DOCTYPE html >
but curious to know if any one has discovered any major or minor issues.