About Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

CSS is a Recommendation from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that gives authors and readers more control over the look and layout of HTML and XML documents.

Using CSS, you can control:

fonts, font sizes, and font colors
line spacing, length, and justification
margins and indents
background images and colors
and much more

You can embed a style sheet inside an HTML document, or insert a link to an external style sheet that can influence any number of documents. With CSS you can change the style of the page by editing only the CSS, not the HTML.

Among the benefits of using CSS to authors are:

The HTML code becomes much simpler and more manageable once the style information is factored out.
Using relative measurements in your style sheet you can style your documents to look good on any monitor at any resolution.
You have finer and more predictable control over presentation.
You can define the look of a site in one place, and change the whole site by changing just the one file.
People with older browsers can still see your pages.
People with disabilities can have better access to your pages.

CSS is implemented in many web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, Konqueror and Netscape Navigator. Using any of these browsers, you can see a demonstration of CSS's power and flexibility by browsing the CSS Zen Garden gallery.

For more information on CSS, its specifications, tutorials and examples, see the CSS home page.

If you write CSS-enhanced pages, check out the buttons you can add!

Bert Bos