The Document-Type Declaration

This tag gives the version information for the document (what version of HTML you're using) and the location of the DTD for that version. The tag goes at the very beginning of the HTML document, before even the <HTML> tag, and has no closing tag.

HTML 4.0 has three versions:

HTML 4.0 Strict DTD -
```
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
```
This version does not include any deprecated elements or attributes (such as most formatting--you're supposed to use style sheets for that).
HTML 4.0 Transitional DTD -
```
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
```
This version includes all of HTML 4.0 plus the deprecated elements and attributes. Probably your safest bet.
HTML 4.0 Frameset DTD -
```
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">
```
This version includes the HTML 4.0 Transitional and frames. Use whenever you have a frameset.
See HTML 4.0 - HTML Version Information for more information.

HTML 4.0 Specification § 7.2

Here is a sample HTML page:

Sample Page

Here is the code for the sample above:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> All About Violets *\*/* </TITLE> <STYLE type="text/css">  </STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#FF0000" alink="#FF00FF" vlink="#0000FF" text="#006600"> <H1>All About Violets</H1> <p>The beautiful wild violets that decorate lawns... blah, blah, blah...</p> </BODY> </HTML>

The Document-Type Declaration

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