W3C

HTML 4.0 Specification Errata

24-April-1998

This document:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/REC-html40-19980424-errata
This document last modified:
$Date: 1999/09/09 16:17:59 $
For errata in the original 18 December 1997 Recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html40-updates/REC-html40-19971218-errata
This document records known errors in the document:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424
The latest version of the HTML 4.0 specification:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html40

Please email error reports to www-html-editor@w3.org.

Known Errors

Section 13.6.1
Image map examples using "poly" have been fixed to form a closed polygon. Also, the last pair of coordinates is the same as the first to close the polygon.
Section 14.4.1
In the final example, the STYLE element is missing the attribute assignment "media=screen, print".
Section 15.2.1
In the example with "mypar", the CSS rule should read 
  P#mypar {font-style: italic; color: blue}

In CSS, "#" refers to an ID name while the "." refers to a class name. This example is dealing with the "id" attribute.

Section 16.2.2
Values for marginwidth and marginheight must be 0 pixels or more, not 1 pixel or more.
Section 16.2.2
The FRAME element does not take the target attribute.
Section 16.5
The IFRAME element does not take the target attribute.
Section 17.2.1
In the description of "checkboxes", change "selected" to "checked" in "when the control element's selected attribute is set."
Section 17.6.1
In the "Attributes defined elsewhere" section for the OPTGROUP element, the attributes onfocus, onblur, and onchange should not be there.
Section 18.2.3
To the list of elements that take onfocus and onblur, add A and AREA.
Section 20
The SGML Declaration for HTML 4.0 must be modified slightly to support hexadecimal numeric character references. The lines: 
        DELIM
               GENERAL SGMLREF
               SHORTREF SGMLREF

must be changed to: 

        DELIM
               GENERAL SGMLREF
               HCRO "&#x" -- 38 is the number for ampersand --
               SHORTREF SGMLREF

And the initial <!SGML "ISO 8879:1986" must be changed to <!SGML "ISO 8879:1986 (WWW)".

Section 21
The HR element should also take the lang and dir attributes. These are noted as being defined elsewhere at the element's definition, but were left out of the DTDs.
Section 21
The OBJECT element's archive attribute is defined in the DTD as taking a value of type %URI". This is incorrect: the value may be a space-separated list of URIs (as indicated in the definition of the attribute and in the DTDs comment).
Section 21
The FORM element's DTD fragment should include a definition for the accept attribute, which is listed in the element's definition. The definition should be the following: 
 accept  %ContentTypes;  #IMPLIED  -- list of MIME types for file upload --

Also, the archive attribute for the OBJECT element is defined in the DTD as taking a value of type %URI". This is incorrect: the value may be a space-separated list of URIs (as indicated in the definition of the attribute and in the DTD comment).

Section B.4.1
At the end of the section, the following sentences are incorrect: "The list of terms in the content is ALL, INDEX, NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX. The name and the content attribute values are case-insensitive." In fact, the META definition specifies that values for the name and content attributes are case-sensitive.
Section B.4.1.1
The specification reads, "Blank lines are not permitted." Blank lines are permitted in the robots.txt file, just not within a single "record". Note that the specification doesn't define record.

Further down the page, the specification reads, "There must be exactly one "User-agent" field per record." In fact, there can be more than one User-Agent field in the robots.txt file, just not more than one per record.

For information about search robots, please consult, for example:

References

Minor typographical errors

Section 2.1.1
The phrase 'accessible via the path "/TR/REC-html4/"' should end with "/TR/REC-html40/".
Section 2.1.3
In the third bullet, the word "applets" should be "applet".
Section 3.3
In bullet two, the sentence "Whether the element's end tag is optional." should read "Whether the element's tags are optional."
Section 3.2.1
In the sentence beginning "Please consult the SGML standard", the phrase "an end tag closes all omitted start tags up to the matching start tag (section 7.5.1)" should read "an end tag closes, back to the matching start tag, all unclosed intervening start tags with omitted end tags".
Section 3.2.2
"Attribute names are always case-insensitive" is missing a final period.
Section 3.3.4.2
The example with the OPTION element has an improper end tag; it should be </OPTION>.

Later in the section, the sentence that begins "Authors should be aware than" should say "aware that" instead.

Section 5.2.2
Change "ASCII characters" to ASCII-valued bytes".
Section 5.3.1
The second bullet should read "a" instead of "an" in "where H is an hexadecimal number".
Section 6.5.1
Change the first sentence to plural: "Although colors can add significant amounts of information to documents and make them more readable, please consider the following guidelines when including color in your documents:"
Section 6.10
The first sentence needs the indefinite article "a" before the word "single".
Section 6.12
Under "Next", "in an linear" should read "in a linear" instead.
Section 6.16
Change "cancelling" to "canceling".
Section 7.4.4.3
In the paragraph beginning "The scheme attribute allows...", replace "Month-Date-Year" with "Month-Day-Year".
Section 7.5.4
In the sentence after the example, make "declaration" plural.
Section 7.5.6
For the ADDRESS element, in the section "Attributes defined elsewhere", style and title are missing.

Also, after the section on "Attributes defined elsewhere", in "contact information for document", put "a" before "document".

Section 8.2.3
In "Authors may also use special Unicode characters to achieve multiply" change to "multiple" at the end.
Section 11.2.4.1
The sentence "The first COL element refers to the first 39 columns (doing nothing special to them) and the second one assigns an id value to the fortieth columns so that style sheets may refer to it." should have "fortieth column" instead.
Section 11.2.5
For the TR element, in the section "Attributes defined elsewhere", bgcolor is missing.
Section 11.3.1
In the first sentence of the frame attribute definition, use "surrounding" instead of "that surrounds".
Section 11.4.1
First bullet, third sentence. "Note that its not always possible" should have "it's" instead.
Section 12.1.2
The last sentence should read "Further information is given below on using links for..." (change "of" to "on"). This sentence is also missing its closing punctuation.
Section 12.2.2
The last paragraph should read "Since the DTD defines the LINK element to be empty..." (insert definite article "the" before "LINK").
Section 12.2.3
Just before section 12.2.4, the third bullet. "richer anchors names" should read "richer anchor names".
Section 13.3.4
In the paragraph that begins "In the following example...", the phrase "cause it so be instantiated" should be changed to cause it to be instantiated" (change "so" to "to").
Section 13.4
Just after the deprecated example, the sentence "This example may be rewritten as follows with OBJECT as follows:" should say "This example may be rewritten with OBJECT as follows:".
Section 13.6.1
Under the "coords" attribute, the word "and" should be substituted for the word "a" so the sentence reads, "This attribute specifies the position and shape on the screen."
Section 13.7.1
In the definition of the height attribute, the phrase "Image and object override" should read "Image and object height override".
Section 15.1.3.1
Under the subheading "Float an object", in the first paragraph, the first use of the word "object" should be "objects".
Section 15.1.3.2
In the "Deprecated" example, the first sentence should read "If the clear attribute is set to left or all, the next line will appear as follows:" ("the" before "next line").
Section 15.3
The align attribute for HR is not defined elsewhere.
Section 16.1
In the last sentence of the first paragraph, the word "though" should be "through".
Section 16.3.1
In the second sentence, the word "factorizing" should be "factoring".
Section 16.4.1
The list of "attributes defined elsewhere" was inadvertently omitted after the definition of NOFRAMES. These attributes are: class, id, lang, dir, title, style, and the %events; attributes.
Section 17.1
In "(entering text, selecting menu items, etc.)", add the "," after "text".
Section 17.5
In the paragraph that begins "Visual user agents may render...", the indefinite article "a" should be removed from before the word "flat".
Section 17.12.1
A comma should be added between BUTTON and INPUT in the list of elements that support the "disabled" attribute.
Section 18.2.2.1
After the first example, the indefinite article before "content-type" needs to be "a", not "an". The same applies to "content-type" in the next paragraph.

In the sentence beginning "Documents that do not specify...", the indefinite article "a" needs to be removed from before "default scripting language information".

Section 18.2.3
In the first sentence of the first note, the word "realm" should be preceded by the definte article "the".
Section 18.3.1
In the second sentence of the first paragraph, the word "be" needs to be inserted between the words "only" and "rendered".
Section 21
In all DTDs, under the COLGROUP element, the content model should indicate "COL", not "col".
Section 24.2.1
At end of definition of "thorn", remove stray final word.
Section 24.4
Change "cp-1252" to "CP-1252".
Section A.1.7
In the paragraph on the COLGROUP element, the last sentence should read: "The semantics of COLGROUP have been clarified over previous drafts, and rules="basic" has been replaced by rules="groups"."
Section A.1.1.2
The list of deprecated elements should include S.
Section B.3.2
In "delimiter followed by a name character", change to delimiter followed by a name start character".
Section B.4
Under "Provide keywords and descriptions", the middle of the sentence "The value of the name attribute sought by a search attribute is not defined by this specification." should read "search engine" instead.
Section B.4
In the example to indicate the beginning of a collection replace rel="begin" with rel="start".
Section B.4.1
Remove "The name and the content attribute values are case-insensitive."
Section B.5.1.2
The last sentence of the last paragraph is missing a closing parenthesis.
Section B.7.1.1
In the deprecated example: 
    
<BODY bgcolor='&{randomrgb};'>

The word "randomrbg" should be "randomrgb".

Clarifications

Section 3.2.1
In seventh paragraph, added "back to the matching start tag" to "(e.g., they must be properly nested, an end tag closes, back to the matching start tag, all unclosed intervening start tags with omitted end tags (section 7.5.1), etc.)."
Section 3.3.3
In the second list item, change "Whether the element's end tag" to "Whether the element's tags".
Section 3.3.3.1
In a content model definition, "A" means that "A" must occur one time and only one time. Also, added "+(A)" to the section on content model syntax.
Section 10.3
All uses of "cracker" in this section and its subsections are replaced with "hacker". Also, definitions of "hacker" and "nerd" taken from "The Hacker's Dictionary".
Section 13.7.2
The hspace and vspace attributes are deprecated.
Section 13.7.4
The align attribute is deprecated for IMG, OBJECT, and APPLET.

Known Browser problems