7CHIP: Converting your Website to XHTML+CSS

Web designers spend months on building web pages. The idea of converting all of them can be overwhelming. There are many pages that use older styles of HTML, especially ones that have been built by hand or with an editor.

XHTML+CSS is the most recent iteration of web design. It permits you to place your contents in documents that are different from the actual look of the content. It is just a backwards compatible form of HTML 4.0 that is converted into XML. XML is very flexible and can work with various databases, content and upcoming developments in the field of web design. XHTML is simple to learn, especially if you know HTML. Cascading style sheets (CSS) gives you more elasticity in terms of designing the look of the web pages. CSS and XHTML together form XHTML+CSS.

The main issue that most web designers and developers are complaining about is the immense amounts of work converting their HTML sites to XHTML+CSS will entail. Websites that are more than a few pages long can take a long time to convert. Some web page editors may not handle XHTML+CSS. But most modern ones do so if yours doesn’t, upgrading to a new editor can be helpful. The benefits that of this conversion surpass the difficulty it involves.

Maintaining documents writen in XHTML+CSS will be easier because the number of tags that cause problems with the code's display will be fewer. This also means that other designers have fewer codes to go through while figuring out how your web page functions. The file size of these pages will be smaller, resulting in a faster download. Most of the designs are on the CSS style sheet making them easier to understand and read. Buying a web editor does not always have to be expensive. There are some great free editors available too.

Converting to XHTML+CSS can be done without a new web editor or freeware editor. HTML Tidy is a great tool for sorting your HTML. This tool goes through your pages and gives valid XHTML. Once this is done, all you are left with is designing the CSS style sheet and attaching it. If you have a good search and replace, it will just take a short amount of your time to ass a link to your style sheet, even if it is to a big website.