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13.9.3 HTML doctypes

Org can export to various (X)HTML flavors.

Set the org-html-doctype variable for different (X)HTML variants. Depending on the variant, the HTML exporter adjusts the syntax of HTML conversion accordingly. Org includes the following ready-made variants:

  • "html4-strict"
  • "html4-transitional"
  • "html4-frameset"
  • "xhtml-strict"
  • "xhtml-transitional"
  • "xhtml-frameset"
  • "xhtml-11"
  • "html5"
  • "xhtml5"

See the variable org-html-doctype-alist for details. The default is "xhtml-strict".

Org’s HTML exporter does not by default enable new block elements introduced with the HTML5 standard. To enable them, set org-html-html5-fancy to non-nil. Or use an ‘OPTIONS’ line in the file to set ‘html5-fancy’.

HTML5 documents can now have arbitrary ‘#+BEGIN’ … ‘#+END’ blocks. For example:

#+BEGIN_aside
  Lorem ipsum
#+END_aside

exports to:

<aside>
  <p>Lorem ipsum</p>
</aside>

while this:

#+ATTR_HTML: :controls controls :width 350
#+BEGIN_video
#+HTML: <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
#+HTML: <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
#+END_video

exports to:

<video controls="controls" width="350">
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
    <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg">
      <p>Your browser does not support the video tag.</p>
</video>

When special blocks do not have a corresponding HTML5 element, the HTML exporter reverts to standard translation (see org-html-html5-elements). For example, ‘#+BEGIN_lederhosen’ exports to <div class="lederhosen">.

Special blocks cannot have headlines. For the HTML exporter to wrap the headline and its contents in <section> or <article> tags, set the ‘HTML_CONTAINER’ property for the headline.