Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

by Richard York (Author) "Cascading Style Sheets, fondly referred to as CSS, is a simple design language intended to simplify the process of making web pages presentable..." (more)
Key Phrases: margin collapsing, box model properties, attribute substring selector, Internet Explorer, Times New Roman, Monotype Corsiva (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“…perfect for people who are starting to use CSS…” (oraclehome.co.uk, October 2005)

Product Description

• This book is the perfect introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Web markup standard that allows Web designers and developers to easily make a style change to one CSS template and then change formatting across hundreds-or thousands-of pages

• Covers the current CSS standard versions (CSS 1 and CSS 2) with notes and comments where appropriate on the CSS 3 standard in development

• Includes quick reference on CSS at the end of the book as well as integrated reference coverage throughout

• Teaches by using an example-oriented approach and includes exercises at the end of each chapter, with sample solutions provided in the appendix

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Product Details

• Paperback: 648 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (December 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764576429
• ISBN-13: 978-0764576423
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #700,343 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, July 26, 2007

By	Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

I've read several books about CSS over the last three or four years, but this book has to be the most complete I've seen. Not only does Mr. York obviously know this material quite extensively, he does it in a way that makes total sense. And this book is not just for beginning web developers either, there's quite a bit of information that more experienced developers can learn about. I also liked the various code examples in color. It helps to make the specific code stand out much more when it's in a different color than the code around it. This of course helps the reader to understand and remember it more effectively.

The author also takes time to talk about the differences in browsers and how each one presents the code. There are few things more aggravating to a web developer than having to deal with the various quirks of each browser. What looks great in IE may not look so hot in Firefox or Safari. And vice versa. The author cites various examples of this throughout the book, as well as "workarounds" for each "issue."

Another thing that makes this book so enjoyable is how the author goes through step by step instructions on how to achieve a particular style. This is one way to show how styles affect presentation.

It's amazing how powerful CSS has become over the last few years. There's a lot you can do with styles and Mr York has shown all web developers ways we can take advantage of this power.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I was looking for in just one book, May 18, 2008

By	Patricia G. Conley (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

When searching for a technical manual, I usually am able to narrow the field down to just 2 or 3 that together will cover my needs.

I sat down with a stack of about 15 books on CSS, including the most popular listed on Amazon, and started thumbing through them to evaluate their content, organization, reference material, indexing, etc. I eliminated several books, and had a tall stack of possible books to one side when I opened this book. I was first struck by the simple beauty of the book layout. The material in this book is presented in an exceptionally pleasing manner, easy to read, and well punctuated with examples and graphics. Code is colorcoded so the reader can easily pick out the portions being described in the text, and followed by color photos of the actual screens resulting from the code.

The book is logically organized and includes the best and most comprehensive reference section of all the books I considered.

The topics are easy to read and clearly presented. There are exercises to do which allow the reader to actually test-drive the techniques described and accompanying code files are available on the website to go along with the book.

I was surprised to find one book that contained everything that I look for in a technical manual. Hurray! I didn't have to buy 2 or 3 books to cover all the bases.

Thank you Richard York.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the bests CSS books, March 18, 2008

By	Marcos O. Cabral (DF Brazil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

This book is what it's intend to be: an excellent book for CSS beginners. Good sequence of chapters, good examples, and the wellcome surprise of color sintax and screen pictures.
Congratulations to Wrox, and I expect that other books could be printed with same quality presentation.