Chapter 11. Cascading Style Sheets Orientation

You’ve heard style sheets mentioned quite a bit already, and now we’ll finally put them to work and start giving our pages some much needed style. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the W3C standard for defining the presentation of documents written in HTML, and in fact, any XML language. Presentation, again, refers to the way the document is displayed or delivered to the user, whether on a computer screen, a cell phone display, printed on paper, or read aloud by a screen reader. With style sheets handling the presentation, HTML can handle the business of defining document structure and meaning, as intended.

CSS is a separate language with its own syntax. This chapter covers CSS terminology and fundamental concepts that will help you get your bearings for the upcoming chapters, where you’ll learn how to change text and font styles, add colors and backgrounds, and even do basic page layout. By the end of Part III, I aim to give you a solid foundation for further reading on your own and lots of practice.

The Benefits of CSS

Not that you need further convincing that style sheets are the way to go, but here is a quick rundown of the benefits of using style sheets.

  • Precise type and layout controls. You can achieve print-like precision using CSS. There is even a set of properties aimed specifically at the ...

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