Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Joseph R. Jones (Author), Paul B. Thurrott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

In desktop publishing, a style sheet makes it possible to effect a "global" change within a document. On the World Wide Web, cascading style sheets will make it possible to make similar global changes, but in a set of widely distributed HTML documents that may reside in servers literally around the world. This book describes the special opportunities and challenges for designers who want to understand this emerging Web function as it is being developed by the W3 Consortium. Details on how the standard is emerging, as well as its implementation in Microsoft and Netscape browsers, will be covered in detail, along with management, security, and design considerations that Webmasters are likely to face.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer is a simple and informative book that introduces you to the background and concepts of style sheets and includes a tutorial to help you add style sheets to your Web pages. The book begins with basic concepts of HTML page typography and layout using frames and tables and then moves into style sheets, finishing with some real-world examples. The guide teaches you how to design style sheets for both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. A helpful compatibility chart shows the tags and features that each browser supports. The final portion of the book examines case studies of sites that use cascading style sheets in different ways and explains how to add style sheets to an existing site to improve layout and design.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Mis Pr; illustrated edition edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558285792
• ISBN-13: 978-1558285798
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,328,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor quality, not worth the money, September 1, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Glasgow, Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer (Paperback)

This book is not worth it. There are a host of typos and other mistakes in it. Worse, at times there are mistakes in the authors' understanding of HTML rules (which makes me worry about their grasp of CSS).

The book also claims to be supported by a web site with "online tutorials about CSS, HTML, and up-to-the-minute information about these Web technologies." The site, however, has only one page (containing unrelated information about browsers) with one link -- to itself. I emailed the author to ask and was told he was behind and hasn't finished any of it yet. That was months ago.

This book does have some marginal value in that it lists things like common fonts available across several platforms, and it touches on advanced design issues. However, you will be far better off purchasing one of the other guides to CSS. Don't waste your money on this one.

1.0 out of 5 stars A lot of typos!, January 10, 2001

By 

"lauramhaz" (Glendale, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer (Paperback)

Do *not* buy this book. It is not well edited and contains numerous typos in the HTML and CSS syntax. It is now 2001 and this book was published in 1997, so it's very out of date. The browser compatibility charts only go up to Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 4. There is no coverage of Opera at all. (The age of the book is not the author's fault, but if you are looking for a good reference, try Hakon Wium Lie and Bert Bos' book, or Eric Meyer's.)

1.0 out of 5 stars typos, typos, typos, October 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cascading Style Sheets: A Primer (Paperback)

This book represents one of the poorest editing jobs I've ever seen. The number of typos, images that don't match content, and outright errors make this book a pain to read. While there is useful info throughout, the poor editing quality is distracting.