I'm confused about how to set up doctype, content, and meta tag(s)

[braidol]

So how do I know how to set up content type, meta data tags and doctype? I'm confused as to when i use each. :P

[drhowarddrfine]

The doctype is used on the very first line of your page and is the first thing you enter.

Meta tags are optional except for the charset which must be between the head tags.

This page should help but be careful to follow the rules for "strict" doctypes only and I recommend not using XHTML.

[braidol]

hmmm...I already have looked at the W3C chart, but I'm just unsure about what to do when I make a page....like the pages has pics and text and some links (external and internal) and some javascript and css or something between the combos...how do I know what to label ?