Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies

11

Advantages of Style Sheets

In This Chapter

Understanding the role of style sheets

Discovering Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Understanding the viewport

Using different types of measurement units

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the language web page authors use to tell a browser (or another user agent) how to format an HTML document. Remember: HTML5 is primarily a language for defining the structure (like the bones and muscles) of a document. The structural elements of a page, such as headings (<h1> through <h6>) and body text, don't affect how those elements look. By applying styles to those elements, though, you can specify an element's layout on the page and add design attributes (such as fonts, colors, and text indentation). CSS is the tool that lets you add skin (and even fancy clothing) to the structure created by your HTML markup and content.

Style sheets give you precise control over how structural elements appear on a web page. Better yet, you can create one style sheet for an entire website to keep the layout and look of your content consistent from page to page. And here’s ...