Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (
XHTML), or simply
XTML, is a
markup language that has the same expressive possibilites as
HTML, but conforms to the
XML standard which is more strict. XHTML is a recommendation of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Most of the recent versions of popular
web browsers render XHTML properly, and many older browsers will also render XHTML as it is superficialy similar to HTML and most browsers do not require valid HTML. XHTML 1.0 was first recommended on
January 26,
2000. Work is underway on XHTML
2.0.
XHTML's true power in unleashed when used in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets. Although HTML can be used with CSS, XHTML moves to force its use for layout and style. This makes the separation of content and form an integral part of the webpage's code.
See also: HTML, XML, DTD