Chapter 4. Shaping Up Using CSS

For many years, web developers regarded CSS as a tool that could be used to style text on web pages, and add a splash of color here and there, but little more. And for a long time, that was all you could realistically use it for, because browser support for CSS was below par. Thankfully, progress has been made!

You’ve now reached a point at which many budding web designers stop experimenting with CSS. Not you! In this chapter, we’re going to delve a little further into the capabilities of CSS as we use it to:

• alter the shape and size of specific areas of content

• change backgrounds and border styles

• position items anywhere on the web page

Let’s begin, then, by seeing how we can use CSS to change the shape and size of items on a web page. However, before we can understand this technique, we need to grasp the difference between block-level elements and inline elements.