CSS: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

~ David Sawyer Sawyer McFarland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Almost 500 pages of CSS help, with more than 100 pages of practical tutorials to guide you through the process of implementing and refining CSS to save you many a wasted hour. At GBP25, you'll be hard pressed to find a better guide to designing with CSS." .NET, February 2007 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

Cascading Style Sheets can turn humdrum websites into highly-functional, professional-looking destinations, but many designers merely treat CSS as window-dressing to spruce up their site's appearance. You can tap into the real power of this tool with CSS: The Missing Manual. This second edition combines crystal-clear explanations, real-world examples, and dozens of step-by-step tutorials to show you how to design sites with CSS that work consistently across browsers. Witty and entertaining, this second edition gives you up-to-the-minute pro techniques. You'll learn how to:

• Create HTML that's simpler, uses less code, is search-engine friendly, and works well with CSS
• Style text by changing fonts, colors, font sizes, and adding borders
• Turn simple HTML links into complex and attractive navigation bars -- complete with rollover effects
• Create effective photo galleries and special effects, including drop shadows
• Get up to speed on CSS 3 properties that work in the latest browser versions
• Build complex layouts using CSS, including multi-column designs
• Style web pages for printing

With CSS: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, you'll find all-new online tutorial pages, expanded CSS 3 coverage, and broad support for Firebox, Safari, and other major web browsers, including Internet Explorer 8. Learn how to use CSS effectively to build new websites, or refurbish old sites that are due for an upgrade.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition, New edition edition (August 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596802447
• ISBN-13: 978-0596802448
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,182 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the Beginner -- Approved by an Expert, September 12, 2006

By	Brett Merkey (Palm Harbor, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CSS: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

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Consider this a "getting started the right way with HTML and CSS" book. As such, it does a marvelous job.

I had a chance to get this beginner's book -- even though my bosses have been grossly overpaying me for years if I really were a beginner! Too many beginner books tend to over-simplify, which becomes a barrier to the more complex issues that a serious beginner will meet down the line. That is not the case here.

Step by step (sometimes even telling you what and when to click!) the book will take you through the basics of creating stylesheets for HTML. You will move from text format basics to moderately advanced layout issues and even print media stylesheets.

The text of the book itself is formatted in an interesting way that is easy to read and makes points clear. There are lots of images and diagrams. I liked the way many of the illustrations jutted out into the outer margin. The effect was a vivid enhancement and the book is bound in a way that lets it sit flat, making it easier to read while keying.

The author also performs a service by introducing, when appropriate, advanced issues and controversies that will surely interest the type of person motivated to go on in this field. The book includes appendices with a CSS Property Reference; CSS in Dreamweaver; and extended CSS Resources.
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for newbies and intermediate coders alike..., October 29, 2006

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CSS: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

I've read and reviewed a number of books on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and I've learned something from them all. But for whatever reason, this one showed up at just the right time and has me inspired and motivated on a new project... CSS: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland.

Contents:
Part 1 - CSS Basics: Rethinking HTML for CSS; Creating Styles and Style Sheets; Selector Basics - Identifying What to Style; Saving Time with Inheritance; Managing Multiple Styles - The Cascade
Part 2 - Applied CSS: Formatting Text; Margins, Padding, and Borders; Adding Graphics to Web Pages; Sprucing Up Your Site's Navigation; Formatting Tables and Forms
Part 3 - CSS Page Layout: Building Float-Based Layouts; Positioning Elements on a Web Page
Part 4 - Advanced CSS: CSS for the Printed Page; Improving Your CSS Habits
Part 5 - Appendixes: CSS Property Reference; CSS in Dreamweaver 8; CSS Resources; Index

From the newbie perspective, this book works well. The first part of the book lays out the case for using CSS instead of pure HTML to format your pages and gain control of the style. It takes a subject that can be a bit intimidating and makes it very approachable. From there, you get a section on how exactly CSS works. This is much easier to digest than some of the more formal reference manuals I've seen in the past, and there's not as much focus on the minutia of every little variant that can happen. This is the material you'll use 95% of the time. Part 3 is where I started to get excited. I've been doing CSS for a while now, but over time I've built up designs that "work" but that could be done much better with what I've learned of late. I noticed a number of items that I want to try out on a new project I'm about to start, and I have a feeling that I'll be in a much better situation style-wise on this application than any of the other ones I support. Same with part 4 and the chapter on improving your CSS habits. I was/am guilty of a number of these things, and this information will go a long way towards making me a better CSS junkie (and will make anyone following after me much happier in terms of support).

I think what worked so well for me here was the consistent use of a single "site" for examples and illustrations. The CosmoFarmer site gave the information a thread to hang on to throughout the chapters, and progressions were logical. I appreciated the tutorials at the end of the chapter so that you could try out the new skills. But what I *really* liked were the references to other sites where you could get more information, as well as clarification on what browsers don't do things according to specs, and how to work around these bugs.

Armed with this book, a newbie would be able to become competent in CSS. And if you've been doing CSS for awhile, there's a strong chance that McFarland will deliver some nuggets that will take you to the next level. I know that'll be the situation in my case...

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on CSS, December 27, 2006

By	Andrew Violette "www.andrewviolette.net" (Hoffman Estates, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CSS: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

The problem with many of the CSS books that I have read is that most of them just reiterate the CSS specification. While this is useful knowledge, it doesn't cover what you need to know to build robust web applications that work consistently across the myriad of browsers on the internet.

This book covers the usual stuff with CSS: styles, precedence rules (the cascade), text and fonts, padding and spacing, the box model, positioning, tables, etc. It also goes into detail about how to apply this knowledge.

Some of the stuff that is included:
- building tabs with the Sliding Doors technique
- Entire chapter related to IE6 and how it diverges from the spec, and work-arounds (aka hacks) that can be used to correct these problems. Other browsers such as Opera and Safari are also covered throughout the book.
- Entire chapter related to floats and using these to create column-based layous. Work-arounds to problems and unexpected behavior are also covered.
- Entire chapter related to forms and how to use CSS for layout

The book is well edited and contains some really good graphics to explain the layout and positioning. Each chapter has a tutorial to help you work through the techniques.