| When you look at Web pages from large | | | | specify than to figure out the CSS details. |
| commercial sites, you see a variety of | | | | |
| typefaces, type treatments, and even | | | | Another way that you can work with CSS is to |
| line-spacing variations.So how do the Web | | | | create a completely separate document on your |
| site creators accomplish those effects? They | | | | Web server that includes all the styles you |
| use a new and vastly improved addition to Web | | | | want to use. You can then reference that |
| page design called style sheets. You might be | | | | documentwithin all the Web pages on your |
| familiar with the concept of style sheets | | | | site. You may think that having a single |
| from working with document-processing | | | | style definition at the top of your page |
| applications like Microsoft Word, where | | | | makes it easy to manage the layout of that |
| choosing a particular style produces a | | | | page. Imagine how handy it would be to have a |
| complex set of changes in typeface, color, | | | | site with dozens (or hundreds!) of pages of |
| size, indentation, and much more. | | | | material, all using theappropriate div and |
| | | | span tags and classes. Add to that the |
| Style sheets give you a corresponding | | | | capability to change the style across all |
| capability as you design Web pages.One very | | | | occurrences of a class, on all pages, with a |
| important characteristic of style | | | | single edit! |
| specifications, both in applications,such as | | | | |
| Microsoft Word, and in Web documents, is that | | | | The impact of Css upon the way developers |
| attributes are inherited.Suppose that a | | | | build web sites has been immense, and the |
| paragraph in your document appears in | | | | possibilities they bring are endless. |
| 14-point Times Roman. | | | | Removing most or all of the presentational |
| | | | information from an XHTML file and placing it |
| Then you apply a style to a single word in | | | | in a style sheet has many advantages, |
| the paragraph that puts the selected word in | | | | including reducing download size and time and |
| blue.Besides having the blue added, that word | | | | huge bandwith saving. |
| also inherits the typeface, typeface size, | | | | |
| and any other attributes from the parent | | | | One key aspect of css design is the use of |
| style applied to the remainder of the | | | | divisions to provide greater flexibility and |
| paragraph. In Web parlance,this is known as | | | | mark out the regions of our pages.Infact the |
| cascading (style attributes cascade down | | | | element are XHTML elements used to define |
| until something changes them). The style | | | | areas of a documents in which you can apply a |
| sheets Ill be talking about are, therefore, | | | | style. |
| logically called Cascading Style Sheets and | | | | |
| succinctly referred to as CSS. | | | | Taking control of your text requires more |
| | | | than just specifying one of the many |
| Because although CSS is wonderful for many | | | | available web fonts or setting font size. Css |
| things, it frankly requires too much work | | | | provides the conscentious designer with a |
| when you want to make just one or two simple, | | | | multitude of tools that can be applied to the |
| straightforward changes. If I want a word in | | | | text, bridging the gap between print and web |
| bold onmy page, its usually much simpler to | | | | design and allowing for much flexibility. |