CSS Cookbook [Paperback]

Christopher Schmitt (Author), Dan Cederholm (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a powerful way to enrich the presentation of HTML-based web pages, allowing web authors to give their pages a more sophisticated look and more structure. CSS's compact file size helps web pages load quickly, and by allowing changes made in one place to be applied across the entire document, CSS can save hours of tedious changing and updating.

But to leverage the full power of CSS, web authors first have to sift through CSS theory to find practical solutions that resolve real-world problems. Web authors can waste hours and earn ulcers trying to find answers to those all-too-common dilemmas that crop up with each project. The CSS Cookbook cuts straight through the theory to provide hundreds of useful examples and CSS code recipes that web authors can use immediately to format their web pages.

The time saved by a single one of these recipes will make its cover price money well-spent. But the CSS Cookbook provides more than quick code solutions to pressing problems. The explanation that accompanies each recipe enables readers to customize the formatting for their specific purposes, and shows why the solution works, so you can adapt these techniques to other situations. Recipes range from the basics that every web author needs to code concoctions that will take your web pages to new levels.

Reflecting CSS2, the latest specification, and including topics that range from basic web typography and page layout to techniques for formatting lists, forms, and tables, it is easy to see why the CSS Cookbook is regarded as an excellent companion to Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide and a must-have resource for any web author who has even considered using CSS.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christopher Schmitt has been working on the Web since 1993. He is the principal of Heatvision.com, Inc., a new media design firm, and resides in Orlando, Florida. Christopher speaks frequently about web design at conferences including South by Southwest Interactive and Web Design World. His books include "Designing CSS Web Pages" (New Riders), "Professional CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design" (Wrox), and "CSS Cookbook" (O'Reilly).

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596005768
• ISBN-13: 978-0596005764
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,276,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The founder of Heat Vision, a small new media publishing and design firm, Christopher Schmitt is an award-winning Web designer who has been working with the Web since 1993.

As a sought-after speaker and trainer, Christopher regularly demonstrates the use and benefits of practical standards-based designs.

He is Co-Lead of the Adobe Task Force for the Web Standards Project (WaSP) in addition to being a contributing member of its Education Task Force.

Author of numerous Web design and digital imaging books, including Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and CSS Cookbook, Christopher has also written for New Architect Magazine, A List Apart, Digital Web, and Web Reference.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting CSS solutions, but a little thin, September 9, 2004

By 

Eric Wuehler (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CSS Cookbook (Paperback)

I think I'd generally agree with the previous positive reviews. You should already be familiar with CSS, JavaScript and HTML - this is not a CSS starter book. It's more geared toward start to finish answers for common CSS questions, most of which I found I could easily adapt to my level of understanding. There is an in-depth description about how to create a very nice looking calendar with CSS (using HTML tables) which I liked a lot. However, for me personally, I will probably stick with O'Reilly's CSS: The Definitive Guide.

I'm sure it was done for monetary reasons, but it would have been nice if the figures were in color - or at least the figures supporting the elements that deal with color. It was tough to distinguish between shades of grey or follow the arrows with the words "blue" or "green" on one end pointing to an area. I know, I know, picky picky. :) So - while I'm being picky... :) The foreward mentions "...compiling hundreds of CSS recipes into this single book" - but by my count, there are only 89 Problem/Solution/Discussion sections (aka recipes). I would like to have seen "hundreds of CSS recipes", which would have provided greater variety to the solutions.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very good, practical guide for putting CSS to use, August 25, 2004

By 

R. Sobkoviak "DHTML mentor / former radio per... (Chicagoland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CSS Cookbook (Paperback)

O'Reilly's other books on CSS tend to be more for reference and learning, but this book, by Christopher Schmitt, contains good, practical advice for putting CSS to use. And as a bonus, this book covers the brand-new CSS 2.1 conventions. Like other "Cookbook" tech books, there are plenty of real-world cases and blocks of code that designers and developers can use or adapt in their own situations. There are plenty of "Hello World" examples that will be useful to those new to CSS, but there is some advanced material, too, for those at intermediate levels looking to spread their wings a bit. This volume bookends quite nicely with the "Eric Meyer on CSS" books.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars CSS Recipes only half-baked, September 25, 2004

By 

Alan C (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: CSS Cookbook (Paperback)

Of the various recipe-style books about CSS that have appeared in recent times, this one is probably the best. It covers a variety of realistic requirements, from "web typography" (large first letters, highlighted first lines, fancy pull quotes etc) to several different kinds of menus and multi-column page layouts. Most of the recipes are short but they are also largely self-contained, making them very quick and easy to use. This format makes me prefer Schmitt's effort to some comparable works, such as Eric Meyer's two colorful volumes, Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS.

That said, however, potential buyers of the book should be warned that it has some glaring omissions. While Explorer-like collapsible menus and tab-style horizontal menus are explained, there is no recipe for drop-down or "fly-out" menus. The chapters on table styling and print stylesheets are rather thin, and the chapter on Hacks and Workarounds makes no mention of Internet Explorer's conditional comments, which, being deliberately-designed browser features, seem like more durable tools than the parsing bugs on which most hacks are based.

These omissions might be understandable if space was at a premium, but at 252 pages, the book is short compared with most other titles from O'Reilly's cookbook series. And one wonders why, if useful things had to be left out, the author could still find room for a Javascript-based technique for producing that most annoying of web phenomena, blinking text.

In the end, I would still recommend the book for people who find that they have to use CSS occasionally, rather than on a daily basis. But the buyer should still be prepared to spend time trawling the web in search of solutions to many problems.