Selected Web Resources for
Getting Up To Speed
Understanding and Using
Cascading Style Sheets

Are you already familiar with (X)HTML and now want to add Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to your web page creation repertoire? The WWW offers an overabundance of free learning resources. We've selected a small number of web sites for you to visit that will not only help you make sense of CSS but will also leave you with working examples of pages whose layout and design are controlled by Cascading Style Sheets.

Why Use CSS?

An article by Greg Rewis attempts to answer the question, "Why should I use CSS?"

Explaining CSS

A brief article by Wendy Peck "Bare Bones, No Crap, CSS Text Control Primer" should give you a feel for the subject.

"The Early Bird Catches the CSS: Planning Structural HTML" is an article by Virginia DeBolt.

Joe Gillespie's "CSS from the Ground Up" provides more depth:
Steps 1-3 Steps 4-6 Steps 7-9 Steps 10-12 Steps 13-15

CSS Tutorials

Russ Weakley has developed a number of short, clear tutorials illustrating CSS concepts:

Selectutorial - CSS selectors: Find out about selectors including the structure of rules, the document tree and types of selectors. Also a step-by-step tutorial showing selectors in action.
Listutorial - a step by step CSS list tutorial: Listutorial takes you through the basics of building CSS lists with "background images for bullets" and "simple rollovers" with a few variations along the way.
Floatutorial - a step by step tutorial on CSS layouts: Floatutorial takes you through the basics of floating elements such as images, drop caps, next and back buttons, image galleries, inline lists and multi-column layouts.
Colored boxes - one method of building full CSS layouts: How do you go about building a full CSS layout? Is there an overall method that can be used for any layout?

Russ Weakley has written other CSS-related articles and presentations that are equally lucid.

Web-Based CSS Layout Tools

Layout-o-Matic: "Select a layout type, width, and other options to the left, and then click Download or View and pick up your multi-column CSS layout starter kit (turning it into something unique and beautiful not included)."
Css Creator: "The original CSS Creator is a CSS generator, which you can use to create styles and test them on your site. If you are learning CSS have a look and see how changes will affect your site and generate the styles.

The CSS Layout Generator will generate layouts with a flexible center column and fixed width left and or right column. All columns will be the same length, the layout can be centered on the page or full width and a header and footer can be easily added."
CSS 2/3 Columned Page Maker

Have CSS Questions?

The "css-discuss Wiki" is THE place to start when you have a question or problem with CSS. It "is a companion to the CssDiscussList mailing list. Among other things the wiki serves as a collective long term memory for the list participants."

If you cannot find the answer in the Wiki, post your CSS question to the CSS-Discuss mailing list.

CSS Webliographies

The compiler of this page has put together a longer list of CSS Resources. An even more comprehensive list of high quality CSS-related web sites is maintained by Laura L. Carlson (University of Minnesota, Duluth).