HTM vs HTML: Whats The Difference ?

hi friends,Does anybody know the difference between .htm and .html files. I am wondering why there are two extensions for the same type of files!!Even some hosts make the index.htm as the home page and some do the other way. Isn't there any standard for making the home page. Some even use default.htm as home page. When the page with different extension is present then it gives a 404 (Page Not Found) Error.Any light in that direction will be of much help.Regards.

Edited April 23, 2006 by sandeep (see edit history)

I believe that it's the same as with *.jpg and *.jpeg. There are probably many examples, but I realy can't explain why it's like that. However, if you have an index.htm and index.html on you web server, one of them will have the advantage.

Always use .html, the three letter extension was due to Windows 8.3 filenaming convention used in DOS because it could not understand 4 letter extensions or long filenames. html is the proper extension and should always try to use this instead of htm.Cheers,MC

I thought there were also some UNIX systems that didn't understand extensions with over 3 letters? I didn't know it was Windows DOS's fault. I read some tutorials that told me to always use .htm because some web servers wouldn't accept the long version. And DOS systems probably wouldn't be used for web servers.

The difference is 1 because HTML has 4 letters and HTM has 3 so 4-1 leaves the difference of 1. Actually as explained earlier by others because extensions used to be limited to three characters (this included email address) htm was used, but now html is better to use for two reason those systems that do understand four letter extensions can read it and those that can't will still display, but I don't think there are even any of those machines still around and if they are they are probably too slow to work properly.

I thought there were also some UNIX systems that didn't understand extensions with over 3 letters? I didn't know it was Windows DOS's fault. I read some tutorials that told me to always use .htm because some web servers wouldn't accept the long version. And DOS systems probably wouldn't be used for web servers.

Unix never really used file extensions though but they also didn't have a problem with file extensions, they never limited how long a file extension could be.

It wasn't until Windows 95 that thousands of sites started appearing with .htm, though .htm existed, it was more apparent at this time (Windows 95 did not understand long filenames till later versions). All this due to FrontPage and because of the 3 letter extensions Windows always relied on.

There were DOS web servers around, just as Apache can run from just a console. The limitations of DOS however caused the extension problems, which case, everyone just decided to go that way, so that it'd work for more people, but now that things have moved on, and these limitations should not be around, I think it's time to actually go with the proper extension.


Cheers,


MC

Other then the obvious, the letter "L," there's not much of a difference between the two extensions. Most, if not all, web browsers and servers will treat a file with an HTM extension exactly as it would a file with an HTML extension, and vice versa.

Edited April 21, 2006 by IniX (see edit history)

As said mastercomputers, everyone should use .html and as it is already explained way I thin I won't repeat it. because there is no such header as text/htm, just that text/html is being used on most of the browsers I know for html, html, shtml. When I see a website using .htm I think that the webmaster/s etc. are not professional there, htm should be avoided in my opinion. :PNever used frontpage, but as I understand it still saves the files with the three letters extension .htm ?

All modern web browsers will treat text/htm as text/html. It's the same. No one cares anymore. Usually people put .htm for lazy sake.xboxrulz

Htm...is just a shorter way of writing HTML, but both are the same type of extention file name. But it is best that you use html because like many before me have said it is just a lazy way of writing the extension. And it can be that much more work to add an L at the end can it?

Usually people put .htm for lazy sake.

I dont think that this is the right explanation to such a good topic, I use Microsoft FrontPage XP, Dreamweaver and Nvu and all the three by default save the web page in the .HTM format and not .HTML. I dont think that these webpage edititors are lazy. There must be some hardcore reason behind all this other than the DOS and Unix problem.

Ok if it is for webpages, I can understand all that operating system differences, server problems and that lazy spoof. But what about that .jpg and .jpeg format of images, I dont think there is anyone who can answer this. It may sound really wierd but, I dont know why it is like this.

Some has to form a group or an organiztaion to set standards in extensions also.

I thought there were also some UNIX systems that didn't understand extensions with over 3 letters? I didn't know it was Windows DOS's fault. I read some tutorials that told me to always use .htm because some web servers wouldn't accept the long version. And DOS systems probably wouldn't be used for web servers.

Only old Minix systems that I am aware of (they were limited to 14 characters plus 3 character extension).

ganeshn11, the reason is they don't want tonnes of people calling them for support because their software that probably still runs on Windows 95, is not working because they can not use .html as an extension.As I said, it was to make it compatible for these systems, but you should realise now that it's hardly likely that these are the systems you'll be running on anymore, plus if you know the reasons why .htm over .html, then you could easily adjust your editor to fix it, otherwise those who don't know, can just leave it as is, and hopefully it'd still work.Editors cannot assume anything, and must work with the most compatible extension, which was the 3 letter extension because of limitations.This is similar to XHTML extension, .xhtml or .xht and why it has a 3 letter extension, again limitation in some Operating Systems extensions (maybe until support is dropped for them will they move on). If there was no problems then they'd force people to not be lazy, as see .xht can be confusing to many, but seeing .xhtml a lot more people would understand what type of document it is, that way writing it in full is beneficial.Cheers,MC

As said mastercomputers, everyone should use .html and as it is already explained way I thin I won't repeat it. because there is no such header as text/htm, just that text/html is being used on most of the browsers I know for html, html, shtml. When I see a website using .htm I think that the webmaster/s etc. are not professional there, htm should be avoided in my opinion.
Never used frontpage, but as I understand it still saves the files with the three letters extension .htm ?

Your right, FrontPage does still save web pages as *.htm by default

In my experience .htm and .html are treated the exact same, just like the guy above who mentioned .jpg and .jpeg

There is probably no right or wrong answer, but now im curious to put a index.htm and an index.html on my server and see which one is called wen you visit the main url

There is probably no right or wrong answer, but now im curious to put a index.htm and an index.html on my server and see which one is called wen you visit the main url

It would depend on your web server's configuration. Apache, for instance, has a configuration directive:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php

With this configuration, Apache will first look for a file called index.html. If it can't find one, it will try to find index.htm. If it still can't find one, it tries index.php. But if they were in a different order, Apache would search for them in that order instead. I'd think most servers these days would have index.html before index.htm, but you never know.

As for .html vs .htm, who cares? I personally prefer .html, but I'm quite surprised at the number of people who consider .htm "not professional" and "lazy". It does exactly the same thing, so what's the problem? Most JPEG files are saved as .jpg, rather than .jpeg - is that unprofessional and lazy?