Specifying Character Encoding for HTML Documents (UTF-8)
Jul 15, 2025 am 01:43 AMTo correctly set the character encoding of HTML documents to UTF-8, you need to follow three steps: 1. Add <meta charset="UTF-8"> at the top of the
part of HTML5; 2. Configure the response header Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8, if Apache uses AddDefaultCharset UTF-8, Nginx uses charset utf-8; 3. Select the UTF-8 encoding format when saving HTML files by the editor. These three links are indispensable, otherwise it may lead to garbled page code and failure of special character parsing, affecting user experience and SEO effect. It is important to ensure that HTML declaration, server configuration and file saving are consistent.The character encoding settings of HTML documents seem simple, but if an error occurs, it may cause the page to display garbled codes, special characters cannot be parsed correctly, and even affect SEO and user experience. Using UTF-8 as character encoding is a standard practice in modern web development because it supports characters in most languages around the world. Here are some key points and suggestions on how to specify UTF-8 character encoding for HTML documents.

Correctly declare character set: <meta charset="UTF-8">
In HTML5, the simplest and most recommended way is to add the following meta tags to the section:

<meta charset="UTF-8">
This statement tells the browser that the character encoding used by the current document is UTF-8. It must appear in the <head>
area and be placed at the top as much as possible to avoid garbled issues caused by the browser starting to render the page before recognizing the character set.
Common errors include:

- Forgot to write this meta tag
- Wrongly spelled, such as
charsett
orcharst
- Put it in
<body>
or blocked by other scripts/contents
So, to be on the safe side, put this tag in the first or second line in <head>
immediately before or after the <title>
tag.
The server side must also set the correct MIME type and response header
In addition to the declarations inside the HTML document, the HTTP response header sent by the server should also contain character encoding information. For example:
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
This setting ensures that the browser knows which encoding should be used to parse the content before downloading the HTML file. If the server is not configured correctly, even if <meta charset="UTF-8">
is written in the HTML, garbled code may appear.
If you are using an Apache server, you can add it in the .htaccess
file:
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
If it is Nginx, you can add it to the configuration file:
charset utf-8;
Of course, the specific configuration method will vary depending on the backend framework or hosting platform you are using. It is a good practice to check if your deployment environment has the correct character set by default.
The file saving format must also be UTF-8
Many people ignore this: when the HTML file itself is saved in the editor, the UTF-8 encoding format must be selected. Otherwise, although you wrote <meta charset="UTF-8">
in the code, the file is actually saved in other encodings (such as GBK, ISO-8859-1), and the browser will still have garbled code when reading.
Common text editors (such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Notepad) allow you to view and change the file's save encoding. When saving HTML files, remember to confirm whether the encoding option is UTF-8. Some editors may use "UTF-8 with BOM" by default, which is also acceptable, but some servers or older systems may have compatibility issues with BOM.
Basically that's it. Setting the character encoding of HTML documents is actually not complicated, but details are easy to ignore. As long as the HTML is correctly declared, the server configuration is appropriate, and the file storage format is consistent, it can effectively avoid the abnormal display of Chinese, emojis or other multilingual characters.
The above is the detailed content of Specifying Character Encoding for HTML Documents (UTF-8). For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Hot AI Tools

Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free

Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Article

Hot Tools

Notepad++7.3.1
Easy-to-use and free code editor

SublimeText3 Chinese version
Chinese version, very easy to use

Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment

Dreamweaver CS6
Visual web development tools

SublimeText3 Mac version
God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)

Hot Topics

To deal with character encoding problems in Java, the key is to clearly specify the encoding used at each step. 1. Always specify encoding when reading and writing text, use InputStreamReader and OutputStreamWriter and pass in an explicit character set to avoid relying on system default encoding. 2. Make sure both ends are consistent when processing strings on the network boundary, set the correct Content-Type header and explicitly specify the encoding with the library. 3. Use String.getBytes() and newString(byte[]) with caution, and always manually specify StandardCharsets.UTF_8 to avoid data corruption caused by platform differences. In short, by

Native lazy loading is a built-in browser function that enables lazy loading of pictures by adding loading="lazy" attribute to the tag. 1. It does not require JavaScript or third-party libraries, and is used directly in HTML; 2. It is suitable for pictures that are not displayed on the first screen below the page, picture gallery scrolling add-ons and large picture resources; 3. It is not suitable for pictures with first screen or display:none; 4. When using it, a suitable placeholder should be set to avoid layout jitter; 5. It should optimize responsive image loading in combination with srcset and sizes attributes; 6. Compatibility issues need to be considered. Some old browsers do not support it. They can be used through feature detection and combined with JavaScript solutions.

MySQL error "incorrectstringvalueforcolumn" is usually because the field character set does not support four-byte characters such as emoji. 1. Cause of error: MySQL's utf8 character set only supports three-byte characters and cannot store four-byte emoji; 2. Solution: Change the database, table, fields and connections to utf8mb4 character set; 3. Also check whether the configuration files, temporary tables, application layer encoding and client drivers all support utf8mb4; 4. Alternative solution: If you do not need to support four-byte characters, you can filter special characters such as emoji at the application layer.

srcset and sizes are key properties for HTML implementation of responsive images. srcset provides multiple image sources and their width or pixel density, such as 400w and 800w, and the browser selects the appropriate image accordingly; sizes defines the display width of the image under different screen widths, such as (max-width: 600px)100vw, 50vw, so that the browser can more accurately match the image size. In actual use, you need to prepare multi-size pictures, clearly named, design layout in accordance with media query, and test the performance of the equipment to avoid ignoring sizes or unit errors, thereby saving bandwidth and improving performance.

Using HTML tags, you can use the href attribute to realize page jump, open new windows, positioning within pages and email and phone link functions. 1. Basic usage: Specify the target address through href, such as accessing a web page; 2. Open a new window: add target="_blank" and rel="noopener" attributes; 3. Jump within the page: combine id and # symbol to achieve anchor point positioning; 4. Email phone link: use mailto: or tel: protocol to trigger system applications.

The main difference is that textarea supports multiple lines of text input, while inputtext is only available in a single line. 1. Use inputtype="text" to be suitable for short and single-line user input, such as username, email address, etc., and can set maxlength to limit the number of characters. The browser provides automatic filling function, making it easier to uniformly style across browsers; 2. Use textarea for scenarios that require multiple lines of input, such as comment boxes, feedback forms, support line breaks and paragraphs, and can control the size through CSS or disable the adjustment function. Both support form features such as placeholders and required fills, but textarea defines the size through rows and cols, and input uses the size attribute.

When writing web content, you need to pay attention to the title and paragraph structure to improve the reading experience and SEO effect. 1. The title level should be clear. A page should only use one h1 as the main title, h2 as the title of the big section, and h3 subdivides the subsections to avoid multiple h1, skip grades or keyword piles up; 2. The paragraph should be controlled in three to four lines, and the key points should be directly mentioned at the beginning, and if necessary, use the ul list to enhance readability; 3. Appropriately use the subtitles of h2 and h3 to guide readers' attention, facilitate information search and optimize search engine recognition.

It is a block-level element, used to divide large block content areas; it is an inline element, suitable for wrapping small segments of text or content fragments. The specific differences are as follows: 1. Exclusively occupy a row, width and height, inner and outer margins can be set, which are often used in layout structures such as headers, sidebars, etc.; 2. Do not wrap lines, only occupy the content width, and are used for local style control such as discoloration, bolding, etc.; 3. In terms of usage scenarios, it is suitable for the layout and structure organization of the overall area, and is used for small-scale style adjustments that do not affect the overall layout; 4. When nesting, it can contain any elements, and block-level elements should not be nested inside.
