By Eric A. Meyer
May 2000
Pages: 470
ISBN 10: 1-56592-622-6 |
ISBN 13: 9781565926226
(Average of 13 Customer Reviews)
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Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the HTML 4.0-approved method for controlling visual presentation on web pages. This comprehensive guide to CSS and CSS1 explores in detail each property, how individual properties interact, how to avoid common mistakes in interpretation. For both beginning and advanced web authors, this is the first major CSS title to address actual current browser support, rather than the way things work in theory.
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Book details
First Edition: May 2000
ISBN: 1-56592-622-6
Pages: 470
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 13 Reviews)
Featured customer reviews
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, February 29 2004
This book let me hit the ground running with style sheets and answered most of my stupid questions and laid the clue down where I was unaware of the depth of my ignorance. If you are average webmaster you must buy it!Kate Lea
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, September 07 2003
A very easy to read book. Only major problem is that it needs updating and I would prefer that CSS2 not be limited to a single chapter. For example all the pseudo-classes should be listed and discussed in one place not broken into two different chapters. I suspect that if this book covered all of CSS2 it would become the reference book on CSS for most people for quite a few years to come.
It is very rare that I would consider buying a computer book of this vintage but I passed over another with a somewhat later publishing date because of the quality of the writing in this book.
The browser support chart only show up to IE 5, NS 4 and Opera 3. I spec as a minimum for my sites IE 5.5 and Netscape 6.2 with a strong reccomendation of using IE 6 and NS 7. I'm also starting to support Opera 7. I also would like to see the browser support info duplicated for each property as it is covered in the main portion of the book and not just in the back.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, August 24 2003
The book is fine, but the CSS2 as an addendum business is a bit outdated now (2003).
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, July 13 2001
The best book on CSS on this planet. As usual with O'Reilly : concise, precise, complete, crystal clear. Bravo.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, April 09 2001
The need to separate layout from the content during web page design/implementation process is a strong selling point made in this book. The logical content separation can be taken further by discussing separating static from dynamic content, ie, HTML vs. JavaScript and by discussing dynamic client and server-generated content, ie, JavaScript vs. ActiveX/jdbc/dbi; neither of these points are mentioned in this book.
The author plunges into CSS and the first few chapters are very handy. The presentations on how CSS is hierarchical, supports inheritance, the numerous demos of various CSS tags/units is worthwhile. Too bad this book could not be printed in color. The down side to the topic is the very poor CSS support by Netscape 4.x browsers.
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Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, March 12 2001
Excellent book. The book manages to talk about the essentials without meandering. Evary line is a value-add. A weatlth of information that you can immediately use on your website. If nothing else, read the last chapter (No. 11): CSS in Action.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, February 06 2001
This book let me hit the ground running with CSS and answered most of my burning questions and laid the clue down where I was unaware of the depth of my ignorance.
I will now get my CSS stroll on, because font tags are SO 1999
Thanks!
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, January 11 2001
Good job!
This book's title is quite descriptive. It gives a detailed look at Style Sheets, starting with their "history," basic rules and structure, text and background colors, and other text properties among other topics. While the book specifically discusses CSS1 style sheets, it does devote a chapter to CSS2 (the upcoming standard), but freely admits the standards for it could change, depending of course on browser support (or lack thereof) for the new standards.
And that's another point the book stresses, that every browser is different in what it does or doesn't support with Cascading Style Sheets. One of the book's appendixes contains a table of different style sheet elements and what each browser supports. Another appendix lists CSS resources, which is quite valuable at a time when style sheet standards appear to be ever changing.
I had held off learning about Cascading Style Sheets for quite a while and thanks to this book, I now realize the power and flexibility they provide for web sites.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, July 27 2000
I have a great deal of HTML experience, but wanted a quick course in style sheets. This books was
fabulous for not only giving clear instruction on how to use them, but also in pointing out common
headaches in browser support. This is the first computer book I've read that represented a goodmidrange level tutorial...not a primer for beginning programmers, and not a technobabble encyclopedia of code. It's a must for any busy professional who just wants the straight story and
doesn't have time to waste figuring out where the common pitfalls are. We all have jobs we need to
do, not time to read tons of books! Kudos to O'Reilly for the first book I've liked from their presses!
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, July 27 2000
Page by page, feature by feature, Eric Meyer's 'Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide' puts a new face on the new face of the Web. I found this book to be useful at virtually every page: I was using CSS on my own homepage within minutes, and plan to expand that to the various websites I maintain, then to influence my officemates to join me in the quest for cascading styles. The only detracting point would be the constant use of Latin in the example text.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, July 27 2000
The CSS bIble--While all this information can be found online (which could be said about almost any web development language), the amount of attention paid to the subject is exceptional.
As with most O'Reilly books I own, I have never felt they were a waste of time or money. Finally, someone has done justice to a subject that should be at the forefront of every developers arsenal of web development tools.
I give lectures on web development and this is a subject that I stress to people over most others. The book is concise with very little fluff. It reads like a textbook.
Buy this book!
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, July 27 2000
While O'Reilly books are almost always good (though sometimes dry and lacking in examples), this book is off the scale in its usefulness and excellence. The most valuable parts of the book explain browser compatibility issues and offers tips, tricks and solutions for getting css stylesheets to work in a real-world environment. Any serious web developer should have this book on their shelf.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide Review, June 18 2000
This book has been invaluble in the redevelopment of www.yellowpages.com.au, www.whitepages.com.au, www.goeureka.com.au and www.whereis.com.au
Media reviews
"To glean the powers an pitfalls of CSS, study 'Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide' by Eric A. Meyer ($34.95, O'Reilly), which explains why the page you designed in Internet Explorer for Windows won't work in Netscape for the Mac. And it's brave enough to say that no one understands some parts of the CSS Specification."
--Edward Mendelson, PC Magazine, April 23, 2002
"What I found in this book is a well thought-out presentation of CSS. Meyer gives an excellent introduction to why CSS was developed and the rules that the language adheres to. I found Meyer's coverage of the different topics, properties, pseudo-classes, visual formatting, and positioning very complete-and extremely useful...'Cascading Style Sheets' is a very good book for anyone who is doing web work to have on hand for all skill levels."
--Wayne Graham, Williamsburg Macromedia User Group, May 15, 2003
"One of the best all-around reference guides on
CSS."
--Todd Hawley, Sept 2001
"The ultimate book on formatting web pages."
--Jonathan Frick, Web Design Essentials, amazon.com
"Contains a wealth of useful information. The writing style is engaging-the more you read, the more you realize that the author is a subject matter expert able to communicate his knowledge effectively. Read Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide if you are a CSS novice or use CSS regularly and want an up-to-date, reliable guide. Yes, O'Reilly books have a reputation as high-quality reference guides. This book is no exception as it provides concrete details and applicable examples on how to use CSS to improve your HTML." --Angela Robertson, Technical Communication, May 2001
"Eric Meyer is THE Cascading Style Sheets guy. If you need a good reference on CSS, buy one of Eric's and you won't be disappointed." --Wendy Willard, A Web-Design Teacher's Recommended Reading List, May 2001
"This fine guide delivers on its promise as an indispensable tool for CSS coders." -- Randy M. Zeitman, www.CompBookReview.com, March 2001
"What can I say? Another excellent O'Reilly book. Style sheets are not for everybody. But if you want to learn more, this is one of the best books I've seen on the topic." --Deborah Lynne Wiley, econtent, Dec 2000
"Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide will teach you everything you need to know about cascading style sheet-and then some! Without a doubt, this is one of the best books I've looked at on CSS yet." --Irene Krause, CEBUG Swatter, July 2000
"Meyer is prepared to show you all the tricks of the trade. He has plenty of examples of CSS code as well as numerous illustrations of its results. After browsing this book for awhile, you'll be surprised at how much of a code warrior you can be." --John Mello, Mass High Tech, 8/28/00
"Cascading style sheets can put a great deal of control and flexibility in the hands of a Web designer--in theory, that is. In reality, varying browser support for CSS1 and lack of CSS2 implementation make CSS a tricky topic. "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" is a comprehensive text that shows how to take advantage of the benefits of CSS while keeping compatibility issues in mind." --Stephen Plain and Teri Kieffer, Amazon.com Delivers Web Development, Sept. 26, 2000
"What can I say? Another excellent O'Reilly book. If you are ready to take the next step with your HTML coding and incorporate style sheets, read this book to get up to speed. Style sheets are not yet for everybody. But if you want to learn more, this is one of the best books I've seen on the topic." --Deborah Lynne Wiley, Reviews of Recent Writings: Library Management Issues, Dec 2000
"the style is easily readable, the technology becomes understandable, and browser inconsistencies are pointed outfa great "must-have" reference tile, which should be read by anyone involved with HTML development." --Mark Newton, PC Pro, Oct 2000
"I think the book would be an excellent introduction to anyone trying to learn CSS, or just interested in why that !@#!$% pages doesn't look right in Netscapemthe price is $34.95, which is not too outrageous as technical books go today." --Jim Foster, Kennebec Valley Computer Society, Sept 2000
"When successfully implemented, Cascading Style Sheets result in much more elegant HTML that separates form from function. This fine guide delivers on its promise as an indispensable tool for CSS coders. --Stephen W. Plain, amazon.com, June 2000
"I fell in love with Style Sheets at first sight. Why? Because I realized that in mere moments CSS gave me gorgeous design effects that even the most cleverly worked-around HTML could never come near. Yet every love requires the lover to make sacrifices. CSS is more complex than HTML, and far more fickle: CSS is not fully supported by even the latest versions of the major Web browsers. Which means that in the real world--oh, dear!--some browsers will not be able to view your web pages made with Style Sheets, and other browsers will see things much differently than you had planned. In technology, as in life, Love is blind... "[A]must-own work is Eric Meyer's Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide. Eric Meyer is an acknowledged expert in the realm of Cascading Style Sheets. Meyer writes with a natural style, easy to follow, lively, and often reassuringWhat it all adds up to is everything I look for in a great non-fiction book: an expert teacher making a difficult subject interesting and clear. This is the heart of it all, and yet a few words need to be said about this book's design: it is gorgeous. Not flashy, but the typefaces are attractive, and the book has been designed with just the right amount of white space so that it's pleasant to look at and easy to read Meyer explains why you should be using Style Sheets, guides you from beginnerdom to Style Sheet mastery, and takes you and your website into the designing future that promises the best of both worlds: more structure and more style."-- Michael Pastore, BookLovers Review, June 2000
"This book does a fine job of following in the tradition of the O'Reilly series by being easy to read and understand. The author does a wonderful job of taking the novice reader and defining style sheets by comparing it to straight HTML. This proves to be the perfect place to begin, as the reader is brought to a comfortable area of understanding. Once accomplished, Meyer systematically takes the most important aspects of HTML and reworks the code into a style sheet example I found the book to be refreshing, descriptive and informative. Where most technical books require absolute focus to be able to follow, Eric Meyer writes in a clear, logical and almost story form. I highly recommend this book both for a conceptual read as well as a desktop reference."--Roger Clark, St Louis Web Developers and Web Designers Organization, Dec 2000
" Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide will teach you everything you need to know about cascading style sheet-and then some! Without a doubt, this is one of the best books I've looked at on CSS yet."-Irene Krause, CEBUG Swatter, July 2000
"Meyer is prepared to show you all the tricks of the trade. He has plenty of examples of CSS code as well as numerous illustrations of its results. After browsing this book for awhile, you'll be surprised at how much of a code warrior you can be."-- John Mello, Mass High Tech, 8/28/00
