Bare-Bones HTML/XHTML Document Templates

Updated January 10, 2025 • 3 comments

In this post I have assembled a concise collection of conforming, bare-bones document templates for just about every DOCTYPE for HTML, XHTML, and more.

Related: HTML5 Table Template »

Document Templates

HTML 5.0
- HTML 5.0
XHTML 1.0
XHTML 1.1
- XHTML 1.1
- XHTML Basic 1.1
HTML 4.01

Doctype Declarations

In addition to the complete document templates listed above, this post also provides the following doctype declarations:

HTML 2.0
HTML 3.2
HTML 5.0
XHTML 2.0
MathML 1.01
MathML 2.0
SVG 1.0
SVG 1.1 Full
SVG 1.1 Basic
SVG 1.1 Tiny
XHTML + MathML + SVG
XHTML + MathML + SVG Profile (XHTML Host Language)
XHTML + MathML + SVG Profile (SVG Host Language)

HTML 5.0

HTML 5.0 ↩

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title></title>
	</head>
	<body>
	</body>
</html>

Related: HTML5 Starter Template »

XHTML 1.0

XHTML 1.0 Strict ↩

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
   <head>
      <title>XHTML 1.0 Strict</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

XHTML 1.0 Transitional ↩

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
   <head>
      <title>XHTML 1.0 Transitional</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

XHTML 1.0 Frameset ↩

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
   <head>
      <title>Accessible XHTML 1.0 Frameset</title>
   </head>
   <frameset>
      <noframes>
         <body>
            <p>[..alternate accessibility information..]</p>
         </body>
      </noframes>
   </frameset>
</html>

XHTML Basic 1.0 ↩

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic10.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
   <head>
      <title>XHTML Basic 1.0</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

XHTML 1.1

XHTML 1.1 ↩

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
   <head>
      <title>XHTML 1.1</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

XHTML Basic 1.1 ↩

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
   <head>
      <title>XHTML Basic 1.1</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

HTML 4.01

HTML 4.01 Strict ↩

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
   <head>
      <title>HTML 4.01 Strict</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

HTML 4.01 Transitional ↩

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
   <head>
      <title>HTML 4.01 Transitional</title>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
</html>

HTML 4.01 Frameset ↩

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
<html>
   <head>
      <title>HTML 4.01 Frameset</title>
   </head>
   <frameset>
      <noframes>
         <body>
            <p>[..alternate accessibility information..]</p>
         </body>
      </noframes>
   </frameset>
</html>

Doctype Declarations

Doctype Declarations ↩

HTML 2.0

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">

HTML 3.2

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">

HTML 5.0

<!DOCTYPE html>

XHTML 2.0

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 2.0//EN" "TBD">

MathML 1.01

<!DOCTYPE math SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/Math/DTD/mathml1/mathml.dtd">

MathML 2.0

<!DOCTYPE math PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD MathML 2.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/dtd/mathml2.dtd">

SVG 1.0

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-SVG-20010904/DTD/svg10.dtd">

SVG 1.1 Full

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">

SVG 1.1 Basic

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1 Basic//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11-basic.dtd">

SVG 1.1 Tiny

<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1 Tiny//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11-tiny.dtd">

XHTML + MathML + SVG

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/2002/04/xhtml-math-svg/xhtml-math-svg.dtd">

XHTML + MathML + SVG Profile (XHTML Host Language)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/2002/04/xhtml-math-svg/xhtml-math-svg.dtd">

XHTML + MathML + SVG Profile (SVG Host Language)

<!DOCTYPE svg:svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/2002/04/xhtml-math-svg/xhtml-math-svg.dtd">

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Fullstack Developer. Book Author. Teacher. Human Being.

3 responses to “Bare-Bones HTML/XHTML Document Templates”

August Klotz 2007/08/22 6:22 pm

Thanks for the templates. As for conforming XHTML 1.1 doctypes, I have seen the html element written as:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/SCHEMA/xhtml11.xsd"
      xml:lang="en">
Perishable 2007/08/22 6:28 pm • Post Author

Are you sure that’s not for XHTML 2.0? I have seen this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xhtml2"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xhtml2 TBD"
     xml:lang="en">

..but i think that only pertains to XHTML 2..
Jeff Starr 2009/01/25 9:42 am • Post Author

Note to self: remember to specify the document language via <html lang="en"> for HTML and <html ... xml:lang="en"> for XHTML.

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