hated it!

[enigma2005]

why is IT so picky? I got 120+ errors in my index page.

[mwinter]

why is IT so picky? I got 120+ errors in my index page.

Care to post a URL to the page you're trying to validate?

Certain types of error can cause the generation of up to three additional errors due to a knock-on effect. Of course it could be just that the markup is really malformed.

Mike

[enigma2005]

here is the URL: http://www.freewebs.com/topicexpress

[mwinter]

here is the URL: http://www.freewebs.com/topicexpress

My second guess was right: the problem is a lot of mistakes in the markup.

The most prolific error (about 48%) is due to the lack of quotes around attribute values. Most attributes can contain any characters you like, however only a very small subset of those characters can be included without quotes. The simple, forward-thinking approach is to always quote every attribute value, no matter what it contains.

After that, the next most frequent error is a combination of attributes that don't exist in any standard, or invalid values for known attributes.

For example, in a couple of places, you've given p elements a language attribute. The language attribute is only defined for script elements, and even there it has been deprecated (you should use type instead).

Another example is where you've given the valign attribute the value of 'center'. The attribute has only four possible values, and 'center' isn't one of them.

I think the remaining errors are overlapping elements and invalid nesting. A simple example of the former might be:

<b><i>Bold and italic</b></i>

An example of the latter is:

<table>
<div>
<tr>

Why you have such convoluted markup for such a simple layout is beyond me.

Mike

[enigma2005]

well I am using Microsoft frontpage and always working in the normal tab.

[mwinter]

well I am using Microsoft frontpage

That explains a lot. Microsoft software in particular, and WYSIWYG software in general, produce markup of terrible quality. Unless you use them merely to provide syntax highlighting, and other relatively passive features, you stand little chance of producing decent documents without a lot of effort.

always working in the normal tab.

Care to explain what you mean by that, and what it has to do with producing bad markup?

Mike