CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

by Eric Meyer (Author)
Key Phrases: aural styles, table layout, paged media, Internet Explorer, Property Reference, Pocket Reference (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
They say that good things come in small packages, and it's certainly true for this edition of CSS Pocket Reference. Completely revised and updated to reflect the latest Cascading Style Sheet specifications in CSS 2.1, this indispensable little book covers the most essential information that web designers and developers need to implement CSS effectively across all browsers.

Inside, you'll find:

• A short introduction to the key concepts of CSS



• A complete alphabetical reference to all CSS 2.1 selectors and properties



• A chart displaying detailed information about CSS support for every style element and its cross-browser compatibility

This reference neatly condenses the details of its top-selling companion volume, Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide into one easy-to-use cheat-sheet that delivers all the CSS details you need to complete the task at hand. Whenever you're stuck and need an answer quickly -- or if you just want to be sure you're applying CSS correctly -- this edition of the CSS Pocket Reference is the book you'll want by your keyboard or, conveniently, in your back pocket.

About the Author
Eric A. Meyer is the author of the critically acclaimed online tutorial Introduction to HTML, as well as some other semi-popular Web pages. He is a member of the CSS&FP Working Group and the author of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 3 edition (October 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596515057
• ISBN-13: 978-0596515058
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,554 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This item is part of The O'Reilly Pocket Guides Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Handy and complete reference, October 23, 2007

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the W3C standard for the visual presentation of web pages, although it can be used in other situations too. The book begins with a short introduction to the basic concepts of CSS. What follows is an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 selectors, and finally an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 properties. This is a good handy reference once you understand CSS, but I wouldn't advise it as a sole source for novices. Instead, try "CSS: The Definitive Guide" in its latest edition for a very good all-round tutorial and reference. This book is for those occasions when you don't have time to go digging through the much larger "Definitive Guide" for short answers to questions. The table of contents is not currently shown for this book in the product description, so I show that next:

Chapter 1. CSS Pocket Reference
Section 1.1. Conventions Used in This Book
Section 1.2. Safari Books Online
Section 1.3. Adding Styles to HTML and XHTML
Section 1.4. Rule Structure
Section 1.5. Style Precedence
Section 1.6. Element Classification
Section 1.7. Element Display Roles
Section 1.8. Basic Visual Layout
Section 1.9. Floating Rules
Section 1.10. Positioning Rules
Section 1.11. Table Layout
Section 1.12. Values
Section 1.13. Selectors
Section 1.14. Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements
Section 1.15. Property Reference
Section 1.16. Tables
Section 1.17. Paged Media
Section 1.18. Dropped from CSS2.1
Section 1.19. Visual Styles
Section 1.20. Paged Media
Section 1.21. Aural Styles
Index

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really handy!, January 2, 2009

By	Rebecca Haden (Fayetteville, AR) - See all my reviews

CSS, or "Cascading Style Sheets" is the language used to tell a web page what you want it to look like -- to "style" the web page, in other words.

This book isn't intended to take you from the moment you learned the term to really knowing how to use it. It's intended to keep you from having to remember all the little details, or having to look them up in your giant textbook.

The book begins with a quick overview of the purpose and rules of CSS. Then comes the main part: a list of selectors and properties.

Each listing includes the values, initial value, what it applies to, whether it is inherited, percentages if that's relevant, the computed value, and then a description.

So, for example, the entry for "background-color" tells us that we can specify the background color for our web page by using <color>, that it can be transparent, that we can specify that it inherits, and that it applies to all elements.

Then it goes on to say exactly what this property will do ("...sets a solid color for the background of the element") and what kinds of problems we might have with this when using different browsers. For more complex choices, there will also be examples.

Having described everything from :active to widows, the book finishes up with a list of older terms that are no longer used. There is a thorough index, as well.

You'll pull this off your shelf often if you write web pages, whether to check the options for bullets in your unordered lists or to find out what the mysterious term Dreamweaver offered you might mean. It's small enough to stick in a pocket and complete enough to be a useful reference for beginners or experienced users.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CSS Pocket Reference, December 24, 2007

By	Keith M. Harrod "eAuctionsPlus.com" (Haverhill, IA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For a small book, CSS Pocket Reference packs a lot of information.

The author, Eric A. Meyer, thoughtfully provides a basic CSS primer in the first 33 pages of the reference.

A must have, go anywhere, reference for every web page author/designer.