graphic design

Most people who have happened to work on web pages know something about stylesheets--yet very few actually know how to properly take full advantage of their features even at the "level 1" standard fairly well supported by most web browsers today.

If you've struggled to make a web page look like you want it, resorting to multipe FONT tags, tables, and formatting tags, then you need this book. If you've written a stylesheet or two but find yourself creating and applying styles to the point it seems more trouble than it's worth, this book is for you. From what I learned, I cut both the size of stylesheets and web pages for a number of both personal and company web pages--at times by more than a half--simply through a better understanding of the workings of stylesheets.

Beginning with the basics of what stylesheets actually are and building upon that basis with concepts like cascading, selectors, elements and pseudo-elements, the book will give readers an understanding of CSS difficult to appreciate merely through reading over other people's web pages or through trial and error. An exhaustive treatment of each sort of style--from fonts to inline elements to boxes--follows and covers nearly everything one could want to know about CSS1.

That said, the book could use an update as since 2000 the browser wars have evolved as has the application of CSS2, which is only touched upon by the book. However, unless you are already a pro at styles, you'll likely find this an invaluable reference, much as any title in the O'Reilly series.

As someone who has never using Cascading Style Sheets in the past, I never realized just how much work this language could save me. I am still amazed at the fact that I can control every aspect of an entire webpage regardless of size by editing various components of the style sheet file.

Never before have my website been as error-free and consistent as they are now. Using CSS2, I was able to ensure that each element of my sites is consistent and correctly displayed on almost all web browsers. I no longer spend hours each month chasing down what I used to call "code flaws" that would cause a section of the page to be improperly displayed in various browsers.

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide is an excellent resource for anyone who wishes to learn to utilize this time-saving language to automate and centralize the task of website maintenance.

Written with a very straight-forward, no-bull approach - I found this book to be a very easy read. The examples provided along the way connected the dots and the appendixes were extremely helpful as a syntax reference. The book is easy to understand even for someone who is not an expert and takes the user from knowing nothing to mastery in just a few short hours.

In less than two hours, I had created a basic style sheet that effectively managed the formatting of my website and put me back in control. Over the next 20 to 30 hours, I had tweaked the style sheet to control every aspect of every page of the entire site and rolled the feature out across the entire site - which consists of more than 2500 separate HTML files or fragment files.

I now estimate that I have 10 additional hours every week to focus on my business and not tweaking my website constantly.

Eric Meyer is the master. This edition is way out of date. Instead, buy Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition. It explains everything about CSS2 in detail. For examples and workflow, buy Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS. Just don't buy this outdated version of The Definitive Guide.