Product Description

CSS is finally supported by all modern web browsers, empowering Web designers to do what they′ve been hungering to do for years: control layout more precisely, use color more effectively, and expand typographic options beyond the frustrating limitations of the past. So where to begin? Where can you get design–focused instruction on CSS while learning the technical details?

Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer′s Edge is precisely the resource you′ve been looking for. Written by renowned web designer Molly Holzschlag, this book begins with an in–depth look at structured markup, both XHTML and CSS. It then explains how to use CSS to achieve specific design goals involving typography, color, layout, and more. Finally, it deconstructs a series of impressive designs, showing you how the authors used CSS to maximize their efficiency and get exactly the right effect.

Key topics you′ll learn about include:
∗ Writing valid XHTML
∗ Authoring effective CSS rules
∗ Working with classes and IDs
∗ Validating your CSS
∗ Creating great typographical designs with CSS
∗ Using CSS for backgrounds, borders, and color
∗ Creating multiple link styles
∗ Using absolute positioning
∗ Working with relative positioning
∗ Positioning with float
∗ Creating great CSS layouts

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #927444 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Back Cover
CSS is finally supported by all modern web browsers, empowering Web designers to do what they′ve been hungering to do for years: control layout more precisely, use color more effectively, and expand typographic options beyond the frustrating limitations of the past. So where to begin? Where can you get design–focused instruction on CSS while learning the technical details?

Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer′s Edge is precisely the resource you’ve been looking for. Written by renowned web designer Molly Holzschlag, this book begins with an in–depth look at structured markup, both XHTML and CSS. It then explains how to use CSS to achieve specific design goals involving typography, color, layout, and more. Finally, it deconstructs a series of impressive designs, showing you how the authors used CSS to maximize their efficiency and get exactly the right effect.

Key topics you’ll learn about include:

• Writing valid XHTML
• Authoring effective CSS rules
• Working with classes and IDs
• Validating your CSS
• Creating great typographical designs with CSS
• Using CSS for backgrounds, borders, and color
• Creating multiple link styles
• Using absolute positioning
• Working with relative positioning
• Positioning with float
• Creating great CSS layouts

About the Author
Molly E. Holzschlag was named a "Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web" in 1998 and has authored more than 20 web design and development books. She is a Web Standard Project board member and frequent speaker at such trade shows as Comdex, Internet World, CMP′s WEB Shows, and Web Builder.

Customer Reviews

Essential Style for Style Sheet Users
If you have not yet realised the power that CSS can bring to designing sites, where have you been? And if you need to know how and why in a balanced description of technology and good design principles, buy this book first.

I have been a fan of Molly Holzschlag's books on Web design since her 1998 text "Web by Design" precisely because she keeps the how and why of Web design in balance throughout her writing, with the end of a good usable site always in view, and because she writes with clarity and interest. There are many useful books on CSS, varying from basic technical definitions, through "what you could do with CSS" to "learn by example" in outlook. Molly Holzschlag in "CSS - the Designer's Edge" manages all three in a logical, clear, and interest-holding sequence. I am a programmer by background rather than a designer, so the language of CSS is no problem, but I need to see how to design better. This book makes me want to get straight out and use CSS to improve design in all the sites I ever built! I am a fan of Eric Meyer's books on CSS too, but if you want one book to put the whole topic in clear, powerful, and usable overall perspective, Molly Holzschlag leads the field for me.

An excelent introduction to modern CSS
This book takes you by the hand and leads you through the steps you need to create web pages styled by CSS2. The first 3 chapters are the best description of the structure and syntax of CSS I have read. And the book continues in easyily digested stages.
There is rather too much repitition for my liking, but for someone trying to learn CSS this is OK. I also noticed a few typos.
Molly discusses many the bells and whistles of CSS2, only to point out that some of the more esoteric, albeit useful, ones are not supported by most modern browsers, and some not by any.
However, overall once you have read and understood this book you will be well on the way to writing good, modern CSS-driven web pages.