Sams Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours

It is an excellent book on learning Cascading Style Sheets for a web design class that I am taking. It was delivered on time and I liked that fact that I could track the progress of the delivery.

Before picking up this book, I would've described myself as someone who was: - not familiar at all with CSS, totally clueless - a little bit familiar with HTML, but not a hardcore hand-coder.... just someone who uses Dreamweaver to set html files up, and then messes with the code for minor tweaks. After picking up the book, I would now describe myself as: - more knowledgeable in CSS and how it can help me create better-looking websites! - a little bit more knowledgeable with HTML as well, since learning CSS goes hand-in-hand with HTML; it not only forced me to dive into HTML a little deeper, but I dived with enthusiasm. (All the HTML information, I found online) - someone who felt stupid for not picking up this book sooner! ---------- This book is perfect for beginners (in CSS). Not once did I feel lost. It had just the right amount of detail in the explanation(s), a good amount of examples, and (optional) excersize suggestions to reinforce what you learned at the end of every chapter. Kynn Bartlett's writing style is very good, and very "teacher-like". The chapter's page-count range from 10-20pages at a time, and easily digestable. I personally do 2-3 chapters a day. The website had all the source files, and came with two bonus chapters (as downloadable PDFs), also with complete text and files provided for your convenience! I am finishing the last six chapters of the book, and am about to venture into Javascript, PHP, MySQL, etc. I wish he wrote books on those too, since I am now addicted to his writing style and approach to the subject being taught. ------------ I already found myself coding CSS after the first half of the book. Of course from time to time, I need to go back and look at specific chapters for reference. But since the chapters are organized very carefully, I can find what I want quickly!

This has completely changed my attitudes towards the '24 Hours' series by Sams Publishing. It is also the first book to really convince me that web applications can be fun to create. For years and years I have been bogged down by repeating HTML time and time again thoughout web projects. CSS now gives me the freedom to put more creative thought into my webpages, as well as make the design nice and simple with out tens of thousands of messy HTML tags. I'm not going to comment on the editing mistakes as I believe that mistakes like that make you look twice and remember the content better. This is one of those books that i just couldn't put down. Great book, great technology and greater webpages forever! Woohoo!

To quickly introduce myself: I have been working with the web very nearly since its inception, including recently teaching a course on design using HTML and CSS.That said, reading this book was of great use to me; I learned things I had never discovered before (some of which, happily, are currently supported by multiple popular browsers), and the guides to browser incompatibility are so useful as to deserve reprinting as a quick cheatsheet to use during the design process. The organization of material is sensible, and while the "hours" aren't really consistent as to how long the material took me to absorb, that should vary by person, so is to be expected.A word about printing errors: there are a few unfortunate ones in the first printing of this book. Each are thoroughly documented in errata on the website the author has provided as a personal courtesy, as well as the various example files and a few more goodies. (The reviewer that decided that he should stop after encountering a printing error and give the book one star, then say "the book may be worth the money" since he hadn't read much of it...well.)In conclusion, the author knows the subject thoroughly and communicated it clearly and entertainingly; his obvious concern for how much the reader gets from his book is commendable and is the basis for what an excellent resource the book is. To borrow a cliche, no web designer should be without this one.

First, some disclosure: I used to work for the author. Nevertheless, being in the teaching business myself, I can enthusiastically report that this is not only the best CSS book I have seen, but a model of writing. It is thorough, explicit, conversational, and funny--a much better read than just about anything else in this part of the bookstore. The author doesn't just give you technical definitions, and he didn't just write the book because he can. Instead, he presents the information in such a way that the book constitutes a 486-page argument for learning and using CSS. If you haven't been exposed to CSS yet, you are in for a treat. CSS cuts development time, enhances results, and provides for flexibility in content presentation. Advanced users note: this is not just another repackaged collection of introductory information. Although I have already made use of CSS I can see that my copy of this book will be well-worn before the year is out.