Web site design has grown up. Unlike the old days, when designers cobbled together chunky HTML, bandwidth-hogging graphics, and a prayer to make their sites look good, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) now lets your inner designer come out and play. But CSS isn't just a tool to pretty up your site; it's a reliable method for handling all kinds of presentation--from fonts and colors to page layout. CSS: The Missing Manual clearly explains this powerful design language and how you can use it to build sparklingly new Web sites or refurbish old sites that are ready for an upgrade.

Like their counterparts in print page-layout programs, style sheets allow designers to apply typographic styles, graphic enhancements, and precise layout instructions to elements on a Web page. Unfortunately, due to CSS's complexity and the many challenges of building pages that work in all Web browsers, most Web authors treat CSS as a kind of window-dressing to spruce up the appearance of their sites. Integrating CSS with a site's underlying HTML is hard work, and often frustratingly complicated. As a result many of the most powerful features of CSS are left untapped. With this book, beginners and Web-building veterans alike can learn how to navigate the ins-and-outs of CSS and take complete control over their Web pages' appearance.

Author David McFarland (the bestselling author of O'Reilly's Dreamweaver: The Missing Manual) combines crystal-clear explanations, real-world examples, a dash of humor, and dozens of step-by-step tutorials to show you ways to design sites with CSS that work consistently across browsers. You'll learn how to:

• Create HTML that's simpler, uses less code, is search-engine friendly, and works well with CSS

• Style text by changing fonts, colors, font sizes, and adding borders

• Turn simple HTML links into complex and attractive navigation bars-complete with CSS-only rollover effects that add interactivity to your Web pages

• Style images to create effective photo galleries and special effects like CSS-based drop shadows

• Make HTML forms look great without a lot of messy HTML

• Overcome the most hair-pulling browser bugs so your Web pages work consistently from browser to browser

• Create complex layouts using CSS, including multi-column designs that don't require using old techniques like HTML tables

• Style Web pages for printing

Unlike competing books, this Missing Manual doesn't assume that everyone in the world only surfs the Web with Microsoft's Internet Explorer; our book provides support for all major Web browsers and is one of the first books to thoroughly document the newly expanded CSS support in IE7, currently in beta release.

Want to learn how to turn humdrum Web sites into destinations that will capture viewers and keep them longer? Pick up CSS: The Missing Manual and learn the real magic of this tool.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 99 Ratings

The best book on CSS I own - 2009-10-26
Reviewer Rating:
This wonderful, supurb book, "CSS: The Missing Manual (Fully revised 2nd edition", has set the bar high for the standard of excellence as regards teaching CSS. I started trying to learn CSS a long time ago but due to the poor quality of the books on the subject, I never "got it". Tragically, I first tried to learn css from the ridiculously terse and totally incomprehensible book, "CSS Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly))". I next erred on the other extreme by purchasing the insanely meandering, needlessly padded, and pointlessly "funny" book, "Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML"

I really cannot say enough good things about "CSS: The Missing Manual (Fully revised 2nd edition". The author is so distinguished it's unbelievable. Not only can he really, really teach well-- in addition he really, really knows CSS inside and out.

At the end of each chapter he has a tutorial. After downloading all the code from the book's website, I do the tutorials using FireFox with the "FireBug" add-on enabled. "FireBug" is fantastic as a learning tool. It lets you easily change CSS operands and instantly see the effect. Another great FireFox plugin is "ColorZilla"-- it's "eyedropper" shows the RGB values of colors on the web page when you hover or click on a color. It's very validating to see "ColorZilla" display the exact same RGB color value that you can see via "FireBug" is the color setting for that element. Another useful plugin is "CodeBurner for Firebug" because it extends "FireBug" with reference material for CSS and HTML. Also, I find it very helpful to look at the source code of the book's downloaded tutorials via "jEdit", a free text editor which the book recommends. "jEdit" does a fantastic job of showing html and CSS in color, which makes it much easier to comprehend the CSS while doing the book's tutorials. The only shortcoming of "jEdit" is that it is a little clumsy to switch between edit windows. So, I use a 2nd text editor called "NotePad++" to show the "after version of the tutorial", and use "jEdit" to show the "before version of the tutorial". That way I can easily copy/paste the source code snippets as I go through the tutorial.

Thanks to this great book, "CSS: The Missing Manual (Fully revised 2nd edition", I finally at long last, feel confident of my CSS skills.

Excellent CSS Reference: Balances Definitions with Technique - 2009-10-25
Reviewer Rating:
There are many good CSS books out there but what really sets the great ones apart are things like organization, clarity and the quality and simplicity of the how-to examples. I've read through dozens of technical how-to books, on topics ranging from CSS to Photoshop and Motion Graphics, but web technologies are often the most difficult to convey and explain succinctly and in context.

Everything is very abstract in the world of web code; it's no small task to write a truly excellent reference book that keeps you engaged and informed as a reader, rather than bombarding you with white-paper speak or endless, overly complex examples. This book succeeds on all of the counts noted earlier. It's very easy to find exactly the types of CSS elements you need to learn about, and then quickly discover how they work. The time between reading and implementing is short. The examples are very clearly illustrated and the author's style and ability to explain things in the right order and with the right amount of detail, make this book a must-have CSS reference. Example: it took me all of 10 minutes to discover (again) how to build my own navbar elements with this book, including styling and page flow considerations. With previous books -even good ones- I'd often sit there scratching my head, turning pages back and forth for a half hour before similarly complicated topics made sense.

I've probably read through a dozen popular CSS titles. I own three. One from Eric Meyer (the classic O'Reilly title - what else?), a copy of "CSS: Separating Content from Presentation" and now this book. This will be my go-to reference anytime I've forgotten a specific technique or guideline. As someone who works in the digital arts, I often go several months between code updates for my site and so having a truly comprehensive but efficient reference is a must to shake out the cobwebs. This is that book. Enjoy.

A Great Beginner's Guide to CSS - 2009-10-20
Reviewer Rating:
CSS: The Missing Manual is a great resource for building a basic working knowledge of CSS and its uses in web design. In addition to the information contained between its two covers, CSS: The Missing Manual points to a variety of helpful resources (both online and in print). Understanding CSS requires basic understanding of HTML, but it you're new to web design or just rusty, the book provides links to online tutorials to make sure everyone is on the same page. One of the best things about this book is the author's approachable tone and sense of humor. Unlike some other technical books I've read, CSS: The Missing Manual makes learning something potentially difficult like web design seem within reach and fun even.

Each chapter begins with a summary of the concept, for example, formatting text in CSS, and then breaks down various ways to format text (selecting an appropriate font, coloring text, changing font size, etc.). If there are multiple ways of writing the code in CSS, the book goes through each method (indicating font size in pixels, keywords, percentages, or ems). Sidebars sprinkled throughout the text provide best practices, important considerations, and FAQs. There are numerous clearly labeled instructional graphics in each chapter illustrate the result of a particular piece of CSS code. This made it easy for me to make a clear connection between the concepts being discussed and how those would translate to the screen. Finally, each chapter ends with a thorough tutorial. As the tutorial walks through the process, it explains why key design choices were made. In fact, the tutorials often require the learner to input a certain bit of CSS code, look at it in a web browser to see why the result isn't optimal, and then go in and tweak the code for a better result. When necessary, the tutorials also provided instruction to work around IE 6.0's glitches, which I found particularly helpful.

Overall, this was a great book to get started in CSS. I walked away feeling confident that I can use CSS style sheets to create web pages. And, with its valuable appendices and web resources, CSS: The Missing Manual is sure to become an often-used desk reference.

useful tutorials, CSS coding by hand - 2009-10-19
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book after working through Dreamweaver CS4 Missing Manual. The Dreamweaver book left me needing more CSS design experience, so I experimented with all the built-in Dreamweaver templates until I understood how CSS styles are created and applied. Only after that did I order the CSS Missing Manual. The manual gives very detailed explanations of CSS rules, properties, layout techniques, etc. It includes tutorials that show you how to code CSS by hand (which is good to know even if you use a web design program like Dreamweaver).

This is NOT a book for beginners!! If you're new to web design, start with a book that shows you how to use your web design software, THEN get this book after you have a basic understanding of CSS.

Very good manual - not only theory - 2009-10-10
Reviewer Rating:
This is really a good manual, full of examples, tips and tricks for crossbrowsers compatibility (please read IE not CSS compliant)...

Starting from the scratch it quickly jumps to interesting things and everyday needs such as website templates without tables, navigation bars and so on...

Consider to buy this book, I'd buy it again :-)

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