Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design

• This book is the perfect introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Web markup standard that allows Web designers and developers to easily make a style change to one CSS template and then change formatting across hundreds-or thousands-of pages
• Covers the current CSS standard versions (CSS 1 and CSS 2) with notes and comments where appropriate on the CSS 3 standard in development
• Includes quick reference on CSS at the end of the book as well as integrated reference coverage throughout
• Teaches by using an example-oriented approach and includes exercises at the end of each chapter, with sample solutions provided in the appendix

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a standard for Web site presentation that allows Web developers to define styles for all the visual aspects of a Web document. This example-packed book provides you with necessary information that will enable you to combine CSS with HTML, XHTML, or XML to create rich, aesthetically powerful designs.

You''ll start by reviewing the background of CSS, followed by a discussion of the tools required to create and test Web pages, a look at the basic syntax used in CSS, and an examination of how CSS comes together with markup to create a Web page. Then you''ll examine how CSS controls different aspects of markup in a Web document. Along the way, you''ll end each chapter with exercises and sample solutions that will help you grasp the CSS level 1, 2, 2.1, and 3 specifications.

What you will learn from this book

• How to choose the right document for a project
• Why the Document Type Declaration (DTD) is important to the CSS designer
• Ways to manipulate the presentation of fonts
• Ways to manipulate text and fonts
• The four different types of positioning: static, relative, absolute, and fixed
• Various ways of styling for tables, XML, print, and handheld devices
• Techniques to make a CSS design compatible with Internet Explorer

Who this book is for This book is for beginning Web developers and designers who want to use CSS for better, faster design and markup. Basic familiarity with HTML is helpful, but not required.

Richard York is a freelance web designer and a participant in the open source community. After attending website and graphic design courses at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis in Indianapolis, Indiana, Richard continued a course of self-study which involved mastering design of web sites using web technologies like CSS, XHTML, and PHP.
When not writing for Wrox or building a website, Richard works on open source webmail applications written for PHP PEAR, an open source repository of PHP applications. Richard also enjoys writing poetry, playing music, and painting. He maintains a website at www.smilingsouls.net that exhibits his personal and professional interests.