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HTML Tidy is a free program that checks the syntax of your HTML files and optionally pretty prints them. See the HTML Tidy Library Project, for more information. To configure it as a syntax checking tool in TextPad:

1. Download the Console Tidy Program.
2. Unzip it to a folder of your choice.
3. Start TextPad.
4. From the Configure menu, choose Preferences.
5. Select Tools.
6. Click Add and choose Program.
7. Browse for tidy.exe and click Open.
8. Click Apply.
9. Click the + next to Tools and select Tidy.
10. Change the Parameters to -errors -quiet $File
11. In the Regular Expression box, type ^line \([0-9]+\) column \([0-9]+\)
12. Set the File register to blank, the Line register to 1 and the Column register to 2.
13. Click OK.

This tool can be run against the active HTML document. Double click any error message to go to the incorrect code in the document.

Tidy has a huge number of options, which can be passed via its command line, or through a configuration file. See the project documentation for details.

Keith MacDonald
Helios Software Solutions

Looks like a handy utility - will it work with any markup language? eg XML

The documentation states that Tidy works with HTML, XHTML and XML documents. However, it has many options, so you may need to experiment with its command line parameters for best effect. Any users reading this are welcome to post their recommendations here.

Keith MacDonald
Helios Software Solutions

Thanks for that info on Tidy!

I just bought TextPad today and so this is my first visit to the forum. I've been working on a new version of my website (in development) and my HTML is very poor with lots of mistakes.

I installed the Tidy plug-in and have gotten several of my pages to be W3C certified!!

Seems like a winning combination to me

I am thrilled that you are having success with TextPad, and welcome to the forum! There are lots of helpful people here to answer your questions.

Please note that ads in signatures are inappropriate. Please remove it when you get the chance. Thank you.

Use TextPad version 4.7.2 or later with this tool.
(I think it's safe to assume this after this and that)

Just an FYI, this subject was continued in another Q/A at
http://textpad.com/forum/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

It explains how to configure the setup to use a config file with HTML Tidy rather than the command line commands...

Thanks
JohnB