CSS: The Definitive Guide

I think you need to own this book. Really, if you're going to take CSS seriously, it's the bible. It covers more ground than any other book and is remarkably clear given its ambitious agenda. The current edition knows about IE 7, Safari 2, Firefox 2, and all the other recent browsers, plus of course it knows about older browsers and all their weaknesses. Unfortunately, you need to know that sort of stuff too. (How much easier life would be if only all browsers were always 100% standards-compliant!) One more thing: The publisher, O'Reilly, is a great company. You call them and a helpful person (not a computer) answers the phone. They take care of your customer service concerns quickly, professionally, and in a friendly fashion. That's a nice bonus, but the five-star rating is exclusively for the book.

Reader Review: "CSS: The Definitive Guide" by Eric Meyer CSS: The Definitive Guide Paperback by Eric A Meyer I'm a beginner; just learning and using CSS, and need finite assistance, a resource guide, and a mentor during my learning curve. As a beginner, I've looked through several books, and in my opinion, I believe "CSS: The Definitive Guide" is exactly that, a definitive guide, but I also believe it deserves the words "Most Excellent" in the title. ;-] When I received the book I was using Dreamweaver CS2, and in the process of converting older files to xhtml and CSS. I was in a problem solving mode concerning background images not showing in Dreamweaver's (wysiwyg), but the background image were showing in browser tests. Holding the book by the spine with my left hand, I separated the pages with my right hand forefinger and thumb, and it just happened to fall open at the book's approximate midsection, page 255, where one of the subheadings stated "Background Images". Wow! I was impressed at this serendipitous, and fortuitous accidental event. As I read though a few paragraphs, I noted the examples, looked at the Dreamweaver code and made the changes according to the book. Immediately, Dreamweaver reacted and displayed the page as I had expected it to see it. This book is not a cover to cover read where you curl up by the fire and read all night, it is a well indexed research support manual -- keep it within reach -- you got a problem w/CSS? -- articulate the problem in your mind, then solve the problem using this book's resources -- checking the adequate table of contents and/or index. I'm presently involved in several computer projects, but this book keeps calling my name... I like it! I pick it up, open it, read a few paragraphs, and I am seeing and understanding a language that up until now, was just out of my reach. It is fun and rewarding to know I am beginning to understand a new language, CSS, and I am reminded of my 9th grade Spanish teacher who would praise us verbally saying when one of us (students) would read an English sentence then state it correctly in Spanish, "Now you're cooking with gas!" We all wanted, and worked hard to hear that reward, and now as I begin to "speak CSS" I feel that by saying the reward phrase to myself. ;-] I love it when authors write about the subject, and even though it may be dry, they can offer a bit of humor. I also appreciate those authors who leave their ego out of the dialog, e.g., "now I am going to show you..." UGH! (CSS) Cascading Style Sheets is of course, the accepted stylesheet language for describing and formatting the presentation of markup language documents, and this book can teach the reader to "read, speak, write and converse in the language." The book "CSS: The Definitive Guide" goes to the point discussion, defines the point, often in more than one way, explains the principle of the rule, and when necessary shows example code and an illustrative example... what more could y

CSS: The Definitive Guide details the ins and outs of the CSS specification. It is filled with numerous easy to follow examples. The illustrations that accompany the examples are invaluable as they allow you to easily compare the markup, the applied style sheets, and the results which greatly enhanced my understanding of the material. The humor included in the examples made me laugh more than once which is a welcome relief when tackling such a complex topic as cascading style sheets. This edition of the book covers version 2.1 of the CSS specification. The author routinely points out where the specification was unclear as well as how certain browsers violate the spec which really helps point out what style sheet authors need to watch out for when targeting certain browsers. This is information that is not in the specification and could take a lot of time to find out on your own. If you are wanting to learn all you can about how to enhance the visual presentation of your site, are wanting to learn more about the capabilities of CSS so you can see how to modify the look of sites you visit using reader style sheets, or just want to find out what all of the buzz surround cascading style sheets is about then I'd recommend this book. I do have to warn you though, the author leaves no corner unturned. He starts out slow with an introduction to cascading style sheets and what they bring to the table. The following chapters then delve head first into topic after topic. You can be sure that you will know the technology through and through by the time you are finished with the book, just be prepared to spend some time working through the material. The author has done a wonderful job bringing to life a subject that might otherwise be quite dry. The years of experience he shares in chapter after chapter has made me glad that I've added this book to my library.

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.

These days, with applications such as "Flash" and "Frontpage" being used to put all the bells and whistles on applications, most wouldn't give a second thought to this book. This is unfortunate. This book is without a doubt the most important book anyone who has a background in HTML can pick up. It deals in great depth with the W3C CSS 1.0 standard, which allows the web designer to customize and standardize their pages to the minutest detail. I was surprised at how comprehensive this book was since it showed me how to do everything from creating lists bulleted with custom images to layering text/images on top of one another. The use of external cascading style sheets allowed me to create elaborate "standard" pages that could be updated by merely changing the stylesheet file. This concept is carried further in eXtensible Style Sheet language (XSL) and therefore is probably the best introduction to XML, before actually beginning to read up on XML! One thing in particular (among many!) about this book that I liked was the extensive use of screenshots to illustrate the effects of various scripts, something often missing from O'Reilly books. After reading this excellent tutorial/reference, read "JavaScript, the Definitive Guide", and "Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference" to learn how to create powerful client-side web pages (pop-up images, pop-down menus, etc.). Throw out FrontPage and really begin developing!