Chapter 2. Presenting Cascading Style Sheets

The presentation layer in Web standards-based Web sites is controlled by Cascading Style Sheets (hereafter referred to as CSS). When an author starts to build CSS files for a site, a number of factors should be considered. These can run the gamut from how many style sheets to the organization of the files’ content, and even determining what it means to write efficient, scalable CSS.

How Many CSS Files?

One of the hardest questions is how many CSS files a project will need. This depends entirely on the needs and size of a Web site. The answer, frankly, is: as many as are needed (and this may evolve as the site is built). Some sites may need a single style sheet, while others may need many. In larger sites, ...

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