I don't seem to be able to reproduce your problem. I know at one point within the past year, there was a problem where Xalan was turning on Xerces "dynamic-validation" feature. Xerces' behaviour with that feature enabled changed, and Xerces started producing validation errors for examples like yours - but we fixed that bug quite a while ago.
Are you certain you are using the latest Xalan and Xerces? What is the result of executing the following two commands? java org.apache.xalan.Version java org.apache.xerces.impl.Version Thanks, Henry ------------------------------------------------------------------ Henry Zongaro Xalan development IBM SWS Toronto Lab T/L 969-6044; Phone +1 905 413-6044 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Dima Gutzeit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2003-12-23 05:25 AM To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: Subject: Re: "Element must be declared" issue Sure , here it goes : xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1255"?> <!DOCTYPE PageContent [ <!ENTITY nbsp " "> ]> <PageContent> <links> <link name="something">bla-bla-bla</link > <link name="something1">bla-bla-bla</link > <link name="something2">bla-bla-bla</link > </links> </PageContent> xsl: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1255"?> <!DOCTYPE PageContent [ <!ENTITY nbsp " "> ]> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"> <xsl:output method="html" version="1.0" encoding="windows-1255" indent="yes"/> <xsl:include href="Pages_iw_IL/header.xsl"/> <xsl:include href="Pages_iw_IL/menu.xsl"/> <xsl:include href="Pages_iw_IL/footer.xsl"/> <xsl:template match="PageContent"> . Some HTML page structure goes here . . . . </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Thanks again for your help.