Advanced Webmaster

An Introduction to Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a new HTML layout and formatting feature to enable web designers to control the formatting and layout of a Web page or entire site without the knowledge of complex programming languages. e.g. fonts, colors, leading, margins, typefaces, etc.

Why are they called Cascading Style Sheets? Because, if you use multiple styles to control the appearance of your Web page, a browser will follow the rules of CSS according to the following precedence:

External Style Sheet.
Internal Style Sheet (inside your <head> and </head> tags).
Inline Style Sheet (inside your HTML Tags).
Thus, an Inline Style Sheet (inside your HTML Tags) has the highest priority and will override all others.

Style sheets and HTML. CSS is a technical advance in Web design that allows Webmasters to control the style and layout of your Web pages. If a browser doesn't understand CSS, your page will continue to be displayed using the HTML code. CSS doesn't replace HTML, it makes HTML better!

Do all browsers support CSS? The answer is no! The usefulness of CSS was initially hampered by a lack of consistent implementation of the CSS Standards by the major Web browsers. Older browsers, either don't support CSS or did so inconsistently. But, the newer versions of browsers are close to full compatibility with Cascading Style Sheets.

What browser version are you using? If your Browser version is less than IE 5.x or Mozilla/Netscape 6.x you should upgrade it now! Visit browser upgrades. CSS is a powerful tool, if you don't start using CSS now, when will you start?

Start learning. Designing simple style sheets is easy. Visit these sites and start learning now!

» CSS School. Complete CSS tutorial with examples, quizzes, references, and an editor.
» Introduction Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This tutorial will get you started with CSS in just a few hours. It is easy to understand and will teach you all the sophisticated techniques.
» Ken Ward's Cascading Style Sheets Tutorial. A tutorial on Cascading Style Sheets. Begins with an explanation of what CSS is all about, and how to create a basic style sheet. Further sections discuss CSS principles that beginners should know about.
» I want to use CSS now! You can if you use one of the eight Core Style Sheets offered by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
» Library of Congress Guidelines for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Explains what Cascading Style Sheets are and how they work with standard HTML to enhance Web page design. Teaches how style sheets are attached to and rendered by Web pages, and shows how to create selector classes and styled hyperlinks.
» Microsoft CSS Gallery. These pages were posted during the summer of 1996. Since then support for CSS properties has improved.
» W3 Org. W3C's overview of style sheets.
» CSS Frequently Asked Questions. A collection of questions and answers about CSS from the HTML Writers Guild.

Recently, web designers have been documenting their experiments with CSS on a section of their site. Examples include:

» CSS/edge. Welcome to the edge.
» Newt Edge. This Newt Edge site is created not for the faint-hearted browsers.
» CSS Experiments. Pushing CSS to the limits - catalogues some of my (more successful) CSS experiments.
» Position is Everything. Modern browser bugs explained in detail!
» The CSS playground. Experiments with cascading style sheets.
» CSS3 info. CSS3 is the new kid in the stylesheet family.

Validation of Style Sheets. Once you create a style sheet you should always validate (test) it. Both services below allow you to enter the URL of a Cascading Style Sheet, enter your style sheet directly or upload your css file from your PC and validate it for free.

» CSS Check.
» W3C CSS Validation Service

During the coming months, I will be converting all pages for this site to CSS pages and adding more information about how to use CSS. Stay tuned!

Do You Need Help? Don't be shy, if you have questions or need help creating your Website, just ask me. I work cheap -- free. The only dumb question is the one not asked!

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