| Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) 5.0 for Microsoft Office - XSLT Developer's Guide |  |
XML Declaration in an XSLT File
An XSLT file is an XML file. Although it is not required, you should use an XML declaration, such as <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>, at the beginning of the XSLT style sheet. This allows other applications to recognize the data types contained in the file.
See Also
XML Declaration (XML Developer's Guide)