Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

Richard York (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764576429 | ISBN-13: 978-0764576423 | Publication Date: December 24, 2004 | Edition: 1

• 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

Editorial Reviews

Review

“…perfect for people who are starting to use CSS…” (oraclehome.co.uk, October 2005)

From the Back Cover

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 648 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (December 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764576429
• ISBN-13: 978-0764576423
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,161,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, July 26, 2007

By 

Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

I've read several books about CSS over the last three or four years, but this book has to be the most complete I've seen. Not only does Mr. York obviously know this material quite extensively, he does it in a way that makes total sense. And this book is not just for beginning web developers either, there's quite a bit of information that more experienced developers can learn about. I also liked the various code examples in color. It helps to make the specific code stand out much more when it's in a different color than the code around it. This of course helps the reader to understand and remember it more effectively.

The author also takes time to talk about the differences in browsers and how each one presents the code. There are few things more aggravating to a web developer than having to deal with the various quirks of each browser. What looks great in IE may not look so hot in Firefox or Safari. And vice versa. The author cites various examples of this throughout the book, as well as "workarounds" for each "issue."

Another thing that makes this book so enjoyable is how the author goes through step by step instructions on how to achieve a particular style. This is one way to show how styles affect presentation.

It's amazing how powerful CSS has become over the last few years. There's a lot you can do with styles and Mr York has shown all web developers ways we can take advantage of this power.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I was looking for in just one book, May 18, 2008

By 

Patricia G. Conley (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

When searching for a technical manual, I usually am able to narrow the field down to just 2 or 3 that together will cover my needs.

I sat down with a stack of about 15 books on CSS, including the most popular listed on Amazon, and started thumbing through them to evaluate their content, organization, reference material, indexing, etc. I eliminated several books, and had a tall stack of possible books to one side when I opened this book. I was first struck by the simple beauty of the book layout. The material in this book is presented in an exceptionally pleasing manner, easy to read, and well punctuated with examples and graphics. Code is colorcoded so the reader can easily pick out the portions being described in the text, and followed by color photos of the actual screens resulting from the code.

The book is logically organized and includes the best and most comprehensive reference section of all the books I considered.

The topics are easy to read and clearly presented. There are exercises to do which allow the reader to actually test-drive the techniques described and accompanying code files are available on the website to go along with the book.

I was surprised to find one book that contained everything that I look for in a technical manual. Hurray! I didn't have to buy 2 or 3 books to cover all the bases.

Thank you Richard York.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the bests CSS books, March 18, 2008

By 

Marcos O. Cabral (DF Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

This book is what it's intend to be: an excellent book for CSS beginners. Good sequence of chapters, good examples, and the wellcome surprise of color sintax and screen pictures.
Congratulations to Wrox, and I expect that other books could be printed with same quality presentation.