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== XHTML
This document is included in convert-documents and the user-manual.
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To convert AsciiDoc to XHTML, set the backend to `xhtml5`.

.Produce XHTML using the built-in HTML converter
[source,console]
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asciidoctor -b xhtml5 document.adoc
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To produce XHTML instead of HTML when using converter templates, set the `htmlsyntax` attribute to `xml` in addition to the backend option:

.Produce XHTML using custom templates
[source,console]
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asciidoctor -T /path/to/templates -b slides -a htmlsyntax=xml document.adoc
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.Black Box Decoded: XHTML and htmlsyntax
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XHTML output is a special mode of the built-in HTML5 converter.
It is activated by prefixing the backend value with `x` (e.g., `xhtml` or `xhtml5`).
This hint implicitly assigns the `htmlsyntax` attribute to the value `xml`, which normally has the value `html`.

For all other converters, the `htmlsyntax` attribute is not set explicitly.
If you want a converter template that's written in Slim or Haml to output XHTML instead of the default HTML, you simply need to set the `htmlsyntax` attribute to `xml` explicitly.
Asciidoctor will pass on this preference to the Slim or Haml template engine by setting the `:format` option to `:html5`.
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