CSS

text size AAA Published March 30, 2010

Overview

Cascading style sheets (CSS) are used to design and format a webpage. CSS is a tool that works in conjunction with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). CSS works like HTML, but it gives a web developer more control over how a webpage looks. With traditional HTML, the style and content are mixed. With CSS, you can separate your layout, fonts, and colors from your content. As a result, you can better maintain your theme across multiple pages on a website. Web design is streamlined and more efficient.

You can download CSS templates from the Internet for free. For example, Layout-o-matic can help you create and format your templates. If you'd like to purchase software, expect to pay around $30. Before you buy a program, take some time to experiment with available free software.

Benefits

CSS helps you meet your needs when designing a website. Formatting a website using CSS gives you more control and flexibility in deciding the presentation of the web page. This is because CSS can separate document content from other elements including presentations, layouts, colors, and fonts. CSS not only allows you to format multiple while avoiding repetition in structural content.

CSS also allows for the size of the content to adapt to a browser's window. For example, if the viewer has a smaller window, the content will adjust to be smaller. Content will also adjust to become larger once the user expands his or her window. HTML becomes more simple and manageable with the use of CSS. With the help of CSS you can define the look and feel of a website in one file. You can also change the look of the website by changing just that one file.

Frequently, website owners are unaware that search engines use bots to monitor websites. CSS makes your website more comprehensive to bots. As a result, CSS can help you improve your search engine rankings.

How It Works

CSS uses a set of style rules that tells the browser how to present the document. You can link various style rules to your document by using HTML style elements. This element is generally placed on the head of the document. You can add style to your webpage through an HTML tag. There are three basic styles that can be used to present your document. They are author style, user style, and user agent style. The author of the website provides the style information in the author style presentation. In the user style document, a local CSS style can be selected from the Internet. In the user agent style, you work on a default style that is applied by the user agent. Using CSS you can manipulate the properties of the document like size, emphasis, color, background, margin, alignment, border, and other elements.