HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) [Paperback]

Jennifer Niederst Robbins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0596527276 | ISBN-13: 978-0596527273 | Edition: Third Edition

After years of using spacer GIFs, layers of nested tables, and other improvised solutions for building your web sites, getting used to the more stringent "standards-compliant" design that is de rigueur among professionals today can be intimidating.

With standards-driven design, keeping style separate from content is not just a possibility but a reality. You no longer use HTML and XHTML as design tools, but strictly as ways to define the meaning and structure of web content. And Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to page layout. When you follow the standards, both the site's design and underlying code are much cleaner. But how do you keep all those HTML and XHTML tags and CSS values straight?

Jennifer Niederst-Robbins, the author of our definitive guide on standards-compliant design, Web Design in a Nutshell, offers you the perfect little guide when you need answers immediately: HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference. This revised and updated new edition takes the top 20% of vital reference information from her Nutshell book, augments it judiciously, cross-references everything, and organizes it according to the most common needs of web developers. The result is a handy book that offers the bare essentials on web standards in a small, concise format that you can use carry anywhere for quick reference. This guide will literally fit into your back pocket.

Inside HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference, you'll find instantly accessible alphabetical listings of every element and attribute in the HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 Recommendations. This is an indispensable reference for any serious web designer, author, or programmer who needs a fast on-the-job resource when working with established web standards.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jennifer Niederst Robbins was one of the first designers for the Web. As the designer of O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial web site, she has been designing for the Web since 1993. Since then, she has worked as the creative director of Songline Studios (a former subsidiary of O'Reilly) and as a freelance designer and consultant since 1996. She is the author of the bestselling "Web Design in a Nutshell" and "Learning Web Design (O'Reilly), and she has taught web design at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Johnson and Wales University in Providence. She has spoken at major design and Internet events including SXSW Interactive, Seybold Seminars, the GRAFILL conference (Geilo, Norway), and one of the first W3C International Expos. In addition to designing, Jennifer enjoys cooking, travel, indie-rock, and making stuff. She maintains her own professional web site at www.littlechair.com as well.

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Third Edition edition (May 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596527276
• ISBN-13: 978-0596527273
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XHTML

More About the Author

Jennifer Niederst Robbins was one of the first designers for the Web. She has taught Web design at the Massachusetts College of Art and the Interactive Factory in Boston, MA.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive reference with all of the basic facts, June 8, 2006

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

This pocket reference is not recommended for HTML newbies. Instead, it is for those who are already familiar with XHTML and HTML and just need the facts in a concise format for quick reference. Particularly commendable is that any time a shorthand name for a technology is used, DTD for example, that term is defined completely so that you don't have to go back and forth among several references to look up all associated terminology. It has been four years since a new edition of "HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide" was published, and this little guide does a good job of showing what has changed over the last few years. I recommend it for all who want to keep up-to-date with HTML and XHTML without buying yet another 400 page book. Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here.

HTML & XHTML FUNDAMENTALS
How XHTML Differs from HTML
Three Versions of (X)HTML
Minimal Document Structure
DOCTYPEs for Available DTDs

ALPHABETIC LIST OF ELEMENTS
Common Attributes and Events
(X)HTML Elements

CHARACTER ENTITIES
ASCII Character Set
Nonstandard Entities (,-Y)
Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1)
Latin Extended-A
Latin Extended-B
Spacing Modifier Letters
Greek
General Punctuation
Letter-like Symbols
Arrows
Mathematical Operators
Miscellaneous Technical Symbols
Geometric Shapes
Miscellaneous Symbols

SPECIFYING COLORS
RGB Values
Standard Color Names

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Replaces five pounds of "other books"..., July 11, 2006

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

My bookshelf at work just got about five pounds lighter with the addition of this book... HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference (3rd Edition) by Jennifer Niederst Robbins.

Contents: HTML and XHTML Fundamentals; Alphabetical List of Elements; Character Entities; Specifying Color

This is a great pocket guide, and exactly what I look for in this type of book. No fluff, just well-documented information that's easy to find, with a small number of examples to show you the format. I really appreciated the documentation on which elements and parameters are deprecated. This comes in really handy if you're looking to code strict XHTML, but you're unsure as to whether a certain feature is going to be supported or not. In most cases, I know the general tag I want to use, but I might be a bit confused as to the exact format of the different arguments. With the pocket guide, I can find that tag in seconds, see the options, and move on. I love it.

The book I've been keeping on my shelf at work for HTML reference is one of those five pound doorstops that covers absolutely everything. The problem is that I have to check the index to find what I need, and I end up using a different book for CSS information. With this pocket guide, I can retire that book, gain more room for other titles, and give my poor shelf a bit of a rest... :)

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable Reference, September 11, 2006

By 

Larry (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

Large books, by their very nature, can have good points and bad points. After all, if you have a couple or several hundred pages worth of material, you are bound to get some things right and some things wrong.
But these pocket reference books from O'Reilly are great. They aren't for learning, rather they are what they say they are: a pocket reference. (Nice to see some truth in advertising for a change.)
If you buy this book you will use it. A lot. Period.