What Is CSS?

CSS
What is CSS?
 CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets
 Styles define how to display HTML elements
 Styles were added to HTML 4.0 to solve a problem
 External Style Sheets can save a lot of work
 External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files
Styles Solved a Big Problem

HTML was never intended to contain tags for formatting a document.
HTML was intended to define the content of a document, like:
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
When tags like <font>, and color attributes were added to the HTML 3.2 specification, it started
a nightmare for web developers. Development of large web sites, where fonts and color
information were added to every single page, became a long and expensive process.
To solve this problem, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created CSS.
CSS Saves a Lot of Work!

CSS defines HOW HTML elements are to be displayed.
Styles are normally saved in external .css files. External style sheets enable you to change the
appearance and layout of all the pages in a Web site, just by editing one single file!
CSS Syntax
A CSS rule has two main parts: a selector, and one or more declarations:
The selector is normally the HTML element you want to style.

Each declaration consists of a property and a value.
The property is the style attribute you want to change. Each property has a value.
CSS Example
A CSS declaration always ends with a semicolon, and declaration groups are surrounded by
curly brackets:
p {color:red;text-align:center;}
The id and class Selectors

In addition to setting a style for a HTML element, CSS allows you to specify your own selectors
called "id" and "class".
The id Selector
The id selector is used to specify a style for a single, unique element.
The id selector uses the id attribute of the HTML element, and is defined with a "#".
The style rule below will be applied to the element with id="para1":
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
#para1
text-align:center;
color:red;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p id="para1">Hello World!</p>
<p>This paragraph is not affected by the style.</p>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body
{
background-color:#d0e4fe;
}
h1
{
color:orange;
text-align:center;
}
p
{
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-size:20px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>CSS example!</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
The class Selector

The class selector is used to specify a style for a group of elements. Unlike the id selector, the
class selector is most often used on several elements.
This allows you to set a particular style for many HTML elements with the same class.
The class selector uses the HTML class attribute, and is defined with a "."
In the example below, all HTML elements with class="center" will be center-aligned:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
.center
{
text-align:center;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="center">Center-aligned heading</h1>
<p class="center">Center-aligned paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
You can also specify that only specific HTML elements should be affected by a
class.
In the example below, all p elements with class="center" will be center-aligned:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p.center
{
text-align:center;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="center">This heading will not be affected</h1>
<p class="center">This paragraph will be center-aligned.</p>
</body>
</html>
Three Ways to Insert CSS

There are three ways of inserting a style sheet:
 External style sheet

 Internal style sheet
 Inline style
External Style Sheet

An external style sheet is ideal when the style is applied to many pages. With an external style
sheet, you can change the look of an entire Web site by changing one file. Each page must link to
the style sheet using the <link> tag. The <link> tag goes inside the head section:
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css" />
</head>
An external style sheet can be written in any text editor. The file should not contain any html
tags. Your style sheet should be saved with a .css extension. An example of a style sheet file is
shown below:
hr {color:sienna;}
p {margin-left:20px;}
body {background-image:url("images/back40.gif");}
Do not add a space between the property value and the unit (such as margin-left:20 px).
The correct way is: margin-left:20px
Internal Style Sheet

An internal style sheet should be used when a single document has a unique style. You define
internal styles in the head section of an HTML page, by using the <style> tag, like this:
<head>
<style>
hr {color:sienna;}
p {margin-left:20px;}
body {background-image:url("images/back40.gif");}
</style>
</head>
Inline Styles
An inline style loses many of the advantages of style sheets by mixing content with presentation.
Use this method sparingly!
To use inline styles you use the style attribute in the relevant tag. The style attribute can contain
any CSS property. The example shows how to change the color and the left margin of a
paragraph:
<p style="color:sienna;margin-left:20px">This is a paragraph.</p>
Multiple Style Sheets

If some properties have been set for the same selector in different style sheets, the values will be
inherited from the more specific style sheet.
For example, an external style sheet has these properties for the h3 selector:
h3
{
color:red;
text-align:left;
font-size:8pt;
}
And an internal style sheet has these properties for the h3 selector:
h3
{
text-align:right;
font-size:20pt;
}
If the page with the internal style sheet also links to the external style sheet the properties for h3
will be:
color:red;
text-align:right;
font-size:20pt;
The color is inherited from the external style sheet and the text-alignment and the font-size is
replaced by the internal style sheet.
Multiple Styles Will Cascade into One

Styles can be specified:
 inside an HTML element

 inside the head section of an HTML page
 in an external CSS file
Tip: Even multiple external style sheets can be referenced inside a single HTML document.
Cascading order
What style will be used when there is more than one style specified for an HTML element?
Generally speaking we can say that all the styles will "cascade" into a new "virtual" style sheet
by the following rules, where number four has the highest priority:
1. Browser default
2. External style sheet
3. Internal style sheet (in the head section)
4. Inline style (inside an HTML element)
So, an inline style (inside an HTML element) has the highest priority, which means that it will
override a style defined inside the <head> tag, or in an external style sheet, or in a browser (a
default value).
CSS Background
Background Color
The background-color property specifies the background color of an element.
The background color of a page is defined in the body selector
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body
{
background-color:#b0c4de;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My CSS web page!</h1>

<p>Hello world! This is a W3Schools.com example.</p>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
h1
{
background-color:#6495ed;
}
p
{
background-color:#e0ffff;
}
div
{
background-color:#b0c4de;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>CSS background-color example!</h1>
<div>
This is a text inside a div element.
<p>This paragraph has its own background color.</p>
We are still in the div element.
</div>
</body>
</html>
With CSS, a color is most often specified by:
 a HEX value - like "#ff0000"

 an RGB value - like "rgb(255,0,0)"
 a color name - like "red"
Background Image
The background-image property specifies an image to use as the background of an element.
By default, the image is repeated so it covers the entire element.
The background image for a page can be set like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {background-image:url('paper.gif');}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Background Image - Repeat Horizontally or Vertically
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {background-image:url('bgdesert.jpg');}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>This text is not easy to read on this background image.</p>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body
{
background-image:url('gradient2.png');
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body
{
background-image:url('gradient2.png');
background-repeat:repeat-x;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
Background Image - Set position and no-repeat

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body
{
background-image:url('img_tree.png');
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>W3Schools background image example.</p>
<p>The background image is only showing once, but it is disturbing the reader!</p>
</body>
</html>

What Is CSS?

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CSS

Styles Solved a Big Problem

HTML was intended to define the content of a document, like:

CSS Saves a Lot of Work!

The selector is normally the HTML element you want to style.

The id and class Selectors

<p id="para1">Hello World!</p>

<p>This paragraph is not affected by the style.</p>

The class Selector

In the example below, all p elements with class="center" will be center-aligned:

Three Ways to Insert CSS

 External style sheet

External Style Sheet

Internal Style Sheet

<p style="color:sienna;margin-left:20px">This is a paragraph.</p>

Multiple Style Sheets

Multiple Styles Will Cascade into One

 inside an HTML element

The background color of a page is defined in the body selector

<h1>My CSS web page!</h1>

With CSS, a color is most often specified by:

 a HEX value - like "#ff0000"

By default, the image is repeated so it covers the entire element.

The background image for a page can be set like this:

Background Image - Set position and no-repeat

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