CSS Introduction

Before your begin:

Before you begin, it's important that you know Windows or Unix. A working knowledge of Windows or Unix
makes it much easier to learn HTML.

You should be familiar with:

 Basic word processing using any text editor.

 How to create directories and files.
 How to navigate through different directories.
 Basic understanding on internet browsing using a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox etc.
 Basic understanding on developing simple Web Pages using HTML or XHTML.

If you are new to HTML and XHTML then I would suggest you to go through our HTML Tutorial or XHTML
Tutorial. Anyone of HTML or XHTML is enough to proceed.

What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets, fondly referred to as CSS, is a simple design language intended to simplify the process
of making web pages presentable.

CSS handles the look and feel part of a web page. Using CSS, you can control the color of the text, the style of
fonts, the spacing between paragraphs, how columns are sized and laid out, what background images or colors
are used, as well as a variety of other effects.

CSS is easy to learn and understand but it provides powerful control over the presentation of an HTML
document. Most commonly, CSS is combined with the markup languages HTML or XHTML.

Advantages of CSS:

 CSS saves time - You can write CSS once and then reuse same sheet in multiple HTML pages. You can
define a style for each HTML element and apply it to as many Web pages as you want.
 Pages load faster - If you are using CSS, you do not need to write HTML tag attributes every time. Just
write one CSS rule of a tag and apply to all the occurrences of that tag. So less code means faster
download times.
 Easy maintenance - To make a global change, simply change the style, and all elements in all the web
pages will be updated automatically.
 Superior styles to HTML - CSS has a much wider array of attributes than HTML so you can give far
better look to your HTML page in comparison of HTML attributes.
 Multiple Device Compatibility - Style sheets allow content to be optimized for more than one type of
device. By using the same HTML document, different versions of a website can be presented for
handheld devices such as PDAs and cell phones or for printing.
 Global web standards - Now HTML attributes are being deprecated and it is being recommended to
use CSS. So its a good idea to start using CSS in all the HTML pages to make them compatible to future
browsers.

Who Creates and Maintains CSS?

CSS is created and maintained through a group of people within the W3C called the CSS Working Group. The
CSS Working Group creates documents called specifications. When a specification has been discussed and
officially ratified by W3C members, it becomes a recommendation.

These ratified specifications are called recommendations because the W3C has no control over the actual
implementation of the language. Independent companies and organizations create that software.

NOTE: The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C is a group that makes recommendations about how the
Internet works and how it should evolve.

CSS Versions:

Cascading Style Sheets, level 1 (CSS1) was came out of W3C as a recommendation in December 1996. This
version describes the CSS language as well as a simple visual formatting model for all the HTML tags.

CSS2 was became a W3C recommendation in May 1998 and builds on CSS1. This version adds support for
media-specific style sheets e.g. printers and aural devices, downloadable fonts, element positioning and tables.

CSS Syntax - Selectors

A CSS comprises of style rules that are interpreted by the browser and then applied to the corresponding
elements in your document. A style rule is made of three parts:

 Selector: A selector is an HTML tag at which style will be applied. This could be any tag like <h1> or
<table> etc.
 Property: A property is a type of attribute of HTML tag. Put simply, all the HTML attributes are
converted into CSS properties. They could be color or border etc.
 Value: Values are assigned to properties. For example color property can have value either red or
#F1F1F1 etc.

You can put CSS Style Rule Syntax as follows:

selector { property: value }

Example: You can define a table border as follows:

table{ border :1px solid #C00; }

Here table is a selector and border is a property and given value 1px solid #C00 is the value of that property.

You can define selectors in various simple ways based on your comfort. Let me put these selectors one by one.

The Type Selectors:

This is the same selector we have seen above. Again one more example to give a color to all level 1 headings :

h1 {
color: #36CFFF;
}
The Universal Selectors:

Rather than selecting elements of a specific type, the universal selector quite simply matches the name of any
element type :

*{
color: #000000;
}

This rule renders the content of every element in our document in black.

The Descendant Selectors:

Suppose you want to apply a style rule to a particular element only when it lies inside a particular element. As
given in the following example, style rule will apply to <em> element only when it lies inside <ul> tag.

ul em {
color: #000000;
}

The Class Selectors:

You can define style rules based on the class attribute of the elements. All the elements having that class will be
formatted according to the defined rule.

.black {
color: #000000;
}

This rule renders the content in black for every element with class attribute set to black in our document. You
can make it a bit more particular. For example:

h1.black {
color: #000000;
}

This rule renders the content in black for only <h1> elements with class attribute set to black.

You can apply more than one class selectors to given element. Consider the following example :

<p class="center bold">

This para will be styled by the classes center and bold.
</p>

The ID Selectors:

You can define style rules based on the id attribute of the elements. All the elements having that id will be
formatted according to the defined rule.
#black {
color: #000000;
}

This rule renders the content in black for every element with id attribute set to black in our document. You can
make it a bit more particular. For example:

h1#black {
color: #000000;
}

This rule renders the content in black for only <h1> elements with id attribute set to black.

The true power of id selectors is when they are used as the foundation for descendant selectors, For example:

#black h2 {
color: #000000;
}

In this example all level 2 headings will be displayed in black color only when those headings will lie with in
tags having id attribute set to black.

The Child Selectors:

You have seen descendant selectors. There is one more type of selectors which is very similar to descendants
but have different functionality. Consider the following example:

body > p {
color: #000000;
}

This rule will render all the paragraphs in black if they are direct child of <body> element. Other paragraphs put
inside other elements like <div> or <td> etc. would not have any effect of this rule.

The Attribute Selectors:

You can also apply styles to HTML elements with particular attributes. The style rule below will match all input
elements that has a type attribute with a value of text:

input[type="text"]{
color: #000000;
}

The advantage to this method is that the <input type="submit" /> element is unaffected, and the color applied
only to the desired text fields.

There are following rules applied to attribute selector.

  p[lang] - Selects all paragraph elements with a lang attribute.
 p[lang="fr"] - Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute has a value of exactly "fr".
 p[lang~="fr"] - Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute contains the word "fr".
 p[lang|="en"] - Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute contains values that are exactly
"en", or begin with "en-".

Multiple Style Rules:

You may need to define multiple style rules for a single element. You can define these rules to combine
multiple properties and corresponding values into a single block as defined in the following example:

h1 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}

Here all the property and value pairs are separated by a semi colon (;). You can keep them in a ingle line or
multiple lines. For better readability we keep them into separate lines.

For a while don't bother about the properties mentioned in the above block. These properties will be explained
in coming chapters and you can find complete detail about properties in CSS References.

Grouping Selectors:

You can apply a style to many selectors if you like. Just separate the selectors with a comma as given in the
following example:

h1, h2, h3 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}

This define style rule will be applicable to h1, h2 and h3 element as well. The order of the list is irrelevant. All
the elements in the selector will have the corresponding declarations applied to them.

You can combine various class selectors together as shown below:

#content, #footer, #supplement {

position: absolute;
left: 510px;
width: 200px;
}
CSS Inclusion - Associating Styles

There are four ways to associate styles with your HTML document. Most commonly used methods are inline
CSS and External CSS.

Embedded CSS - The <style> Element:

You can put your CSS rules into an HTML document using the <style> element. This tag is placed inside
<head>...</head> tags. Rules defined using this syntax will be applied to all the elements available in the
document. Here is the generic syntax:

<head>
<style type="text/css" media="...">
Style Rules
............
</style>
</head>

Attributes:

Attributes associated with <style> elements are:

Attribute Value Description

Specifies the style sheet language as a content-type (MIME type). This is required
type text/css
attribute.

screen
tty
tv
projection
Specifies the device the document will be displayed on. Default value is all. This is
media handheld
optional attribute.
print
braille
aural
all

Example:

Following is the example of embed CSS based on above syntax:

<head>
<style type="text/css" media="all">
h1{
color: #36C;
}
</style>
</head>

Inline CSS - The style Attribute:

You can use style attribute of any HTML element to define style rules. These rules will be applied to that
element only. Here is the generic syntax:

<element style="...style rules....">

Attributes:

Attribute Value Description

style The value of style attribute is a combination of style declarations separated by

style
rules semicolon (;).

Example:

Following is the example of inline CSS based on above syntax:

<h1 style ="color:#36C;"> This is inline CSS </h1>

This will produce following result:

This is inline CSS

External CSS - The <link> Element:

The <link> element can be used to include an external stylesheet file in your HTML document.

An external style sheet is a separate text file with .css extension. You define all the Style rules within this text
file and then you can include this file in any HTML document using <link> element.

Here is the generic syntax of including external CSS file:

<head>
<link type="text/css" href="..." media="..." />
</head>

Attributes:

Attributes associated with <style> elements are:

Attribute Value Description

Specifies the style sheet language as a content-type (MIME type). This attribute is
type text/css
required.

href URL Specifies the style sheet file having Style rules. This attribute is a required.

screen
tty
tv
projection
Specifies the device the document will be displayed on. Default value is all. This is
media handheld
optional attribute.
print
braille
aural
all

Example:

Consider a simple style sheet file with a name mystyle.css having the following rules:

h1, h2, h3 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}

Now you can include this file mystyle.css in any HTML document as follows:

<head>
<link type="text/css" href="mystyle.css" media="all" />
</head>

Imported CSS - @import Rule:

@import is used to import an external stylesheet in a manner similar to the <link> element. Here is the generic
syntax of @import rule.

<head>
<@import "URL";
</head>
Here URL is the URL of the style sheet file having style rules. You can use another syntax as well:

<head>
<@import url("URL");
</head>

Example:

Following is the example showing you how to import a style sheet file into HTML document:

<head>
@import "mystyle.css";
</head>

CSS Rules Overriding:

We have discussed four ways to include style sheet rules in a an HTML document. Here is the rule to override
any Style Sheet Rule.

 Any inline style sheet takes highest priority. So it will override any rule defined in <style>...</style>
tags or rules defined in any external style sheet file.
 Any rule defined in <style>...</style> tags will override rules defined in any external style sheet file.
 Any rule defined in external style sheet file takes lowest priority and rules defined in this file will be
applied only when above two rules are not applicable.

Handling old Browsers:

There are still many old browsers who do not support CSS. So we should take care while writing our Embedded
CSS in an HTML document. The following snippet shows how you can use comment tags to hide CSS from
older browsers:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
body, td {
color: blue;
}
-->
</style>

CSS Comments:

Many times you may need to put additional comments in your style sheet blocks. So it is very easy to comment
any part in style sheet. You simple put your comments inside /*.....this is a comment in style sheet.....*/.

You can use /* ....*/ to comment multi-line blocks in similar way you do in C and C++ programming languages.

Example:
/* This is an external style sheet file */
h1, h2, h3 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}
/* end of style rules. */

CSS - Measurement Units

Before we start actual exercise, I would like to give a brief idea about the CSS Measurement Units.

CSS supports a number of measurements including absolute units such as inches, centimeters, points, and so on,
as well as relative measures such as percentages and em units. You need these values while specifying various
measurements in your Style rules e.g border="1px solid red".

We have listed out all the CSS Measurement Units alogwith proper Examples:

Unit Description Example

% Defines a measurement as a percentage relative to p {font-size: 16pt; line-height: 125%;}
another value, typically an enclosing element.
cm Defines a measurement in centimeters. div {margin-bottom: 2cm;}
em A relative measurement for the height of a font in em p {letter-spacing: 7em;}
spaces. Because an em unit is equivalent to the size of
a given font, if you assign a font to 12pt, each "em"
unit would be 12pt; thus, 2em would be 24pt.
ex This value defines a measurement relative to a font's p {font-size: 24pt; line-height: 3ex;}
x-height. The x-height is determined by the height of
the font's lowercase letter x.
in Defines a measurement in inches. p {word-spacing: .15in;}
mm Defines a measurement in millimeters. p {word-spacing: 15mm;}
pc Defines a measurement in picas. A pica is equivalent p {font-size: 20pc;}
to 12 points; thus, there are 6 picas per inch.
pt Defines a measurement in points. A point is defined body {font-size: 18pt;}
as 1/72nd of an inch.
px Defines a measurement in screen pixels. p {padding: 25px;}

CSS - Pseudo Classes

CSS pseudo-classes are used to add special effects to some selectors. You do not need to use Javascript or any
other script to use those effects. A simple syntax of pseudo-classes is as follows:
selector:pseudo-class {property: value}

CSS classes can also be used with pseudo-classes:

selector.class:pseudo-class {property: value}

There are following most commonly used pseudo-classes:

Value Description

:link Use this class to add special style to an unvisited link.

:visited Use this class to add special style to a visited link.

:hover Use this class to add special style to an element when you mouse over it.

:active Use this class to add special style to an active element.

:focus Use this class to add special style to an element while the element has focus.

:first-child Use this class to add special style to an element that is the first child of some other element.

:lang Use this class to specify a language to use in a specified element.

While defining pseudo-classes in a <style>...</style> block, following points should be taken care:

 a:hover MUST come after a:link and a:visited in the CSS definition in order to be effective.
 a:active MUST come after a:hover in the CSS definition in order to be effective.
 Pseudo-class names are not case-sensitive.
 Pseudo-class are different from CSS classes but they can be combined.

The :link pseudo-class

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :link class to set the link color. Possible value could
be any color name in any valid format.

<style type="text/css">
a:link {color:#000000}
</style>
<a href="/html/index.htm">Black Link</a>

This will produce following black link:

Black Link

The :visited pseudo-class

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :visited class to set the color of visited links. Possible
value could be any color name in any valid format.

<style type="text/css">
a:visited {color: #006600}
</style>
<a href="/html/index.htm">Click this link</a>

This will produce following link. Once you will click this link, it will change its color to green.

Click this link

The :hover pseudo-class

Following is the example which demonstrates how use :hover class to change the color of links when we bring
a mouse pointer over that link. Possible value could be any color name in any valid format.

<style type="text/css">
a:hover {color: #FFCC00}
</style>
<a href="/html/index.htm">Bring Mouse Here</a>

This will produce following link. Now you bring your mouse over this link and you will see that it changes its
color to yellow.

Bring Mouse Here

The :active pseudo-class

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :active class to change the color of active links.
Possible value could be any color name in any valid format.

<style type="text/css">
a:active {color: #FF00CC}
</style>
<a href="/html/index.htm">Click This Link</a>

This will produce following link. This will change its color to pink when user clicks it.
Click This Link

The :focus pseudo-class

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :focus class to change the color of focused links.
Possible value could be any color name in any valid format.

<style type="text/css">
a:focus {color: #0000FF}
</style>
<a href="/html/index.htm">Click this Link</a>

This will produce following link. This will change it color to orange when this link gets focused, then you focus
on any other link to see that this color will change when it will lose focus.

The :first-child pseudo-class

The :first-child pseudo-class matches a specified element that is the first child of another element and adds
special style to that element that is the first child of some other element.

To make :first-child work in IE <!DOCTYPE> must be declared at the top of document.

For example, to indent the first paragraph of all <div> elements, you could use this definition:

<style type="text/css">
div > p:first-child
{
text-indent: 25px;
}
</style>
<div>
<p>
First paragraph in div. This paragraph will be indented
</p>
<p>
Second paragraph in div. This paragraph will not be indented
</p>
</div>

But it will not match the paragraph in this HTML:

<div>
<h3>Heading</h3>
<p>
The first paragraph inside the div.
This paragraph will not be effected.
</p>
</div>

This will produce following result:

First paragraph in div. This paragraph will be indented

Second paragraph in div. This paragraph will not be indented

But it will not match the paragraph in this HTML:

Heading

The first paragraph inside the div.

This paragraph will not be effected.

The :lang pseudo-class

The language pseudo-class :lang allows constructing selectors based on the language setting for specific tags.

This class is useful in documents that must appeal to multiple languages that have different conventions for
certain language constructs. For example, the French language typically uses angle brackets (< and >) for
quoting purposes, while the English language uses quote marks (' and ').

In a document that needs to address this difference, you can use the :lang pseudo-class to change the quote
marks appropriately. The following code changes the <blockquote> tag appropriately for the language being
used:

<style type="text/css">
/* Two levels of quotes for two languages*/
:lang(en) { quotes: '"' '"' "'" "'"; }
:lang(fr) { quotes: "<<" ">>" "<" ">"; }
</style>
<p>...<q lang="fr">A quote in a paragraph</q>...</p>

The :lang selectors will apply to all elements in the document. However, not all elements make use of the
quotes property, so the effect will be transparent for most elements.

...A quote in a paragraph...

CSS - Pseudo Elements

CSS pseudo-elements are used to add special effects to some selectors. You do not need to use Javascript or any
other script to use those effects. A simple syntax of pseudo-element is as follows:

selector:pseudo-element {property: value}

CSS classes can also be used with pseudo-elements:

selector.class:pseudo-element {property: value}

There are following most commonly used pseudo-elements:

Value Description
:first-line Use this element to add special styles to the first line of the text in a selector.
:first-letter Use this element to add special style to the first letter of the text in a selector.
:before Use this element to insert some content before an element.
:after Use this element to insert some content after an element.

The :first-line pseudo-element

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :first-line element to add special effect to the first line
of elements in the document .

<style type="text/css">
p:first-line { text-decoration: underline; }
p.noline:first-line { text-decoration: none; }
</style>
<p class="noline"> This line would not have any underline
because this belongs to nline class.</p>

<p>The first line of this paragraph will be underlined

as defined in the CSS rule above. Rest of the lines in this
paragraph will remain normal. This example shows how to use
:first-line pseduo element to give effect to the first line
of any HTML element.</p>

This will produce following black link:

This line would not have any underline because this belongs to nline class.

The first line of this paragraph will be underlined as defined in the CSS rule above. Rest of the lines in this
paragraph will remain normal. This example shows how to use :first-line pseduo element to give effect to the
first lines of any HTML element.

The :first-letter pseudo-element

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :first-letter element to add special effect to the first
letter of elements in the document .

<style type="text/css">
p:first-letter { font-size: 3em; text-color:red; }
p.normal:first-letter { font-size: 10px; }
</style>
<p class="normal"> First character of this paragraph will
be normal and will have font size 10 px;</p>

<p>The first character of this paragraph will be 3em big

and in red color as defined in the CSS rule above. Rest of the
characters in this paragraph will remain normal. This example
shows how to use :first-letter pseduo element to give effect to
the first characters of any HTML element.</p>

This will produce following black link:

First character of this paragraph will be normal and will have font size 10 px;

The first character of this paragraph will be 3em big and in red color as defined in the CSS rule above. Rest of
the characters in this paragraph will remain normal. This example shows how to use :first-letter pseduo element
to give effect to the first characters of any HTML element.

The :before pseudo-element

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :before element to add some content before any
element .

<style type="text/css">
p:before
{
content: url(/https/it.scribd.com/images/bullet.gif)
}
</style>
<p> This line will be preceded by a bullet.</p>
<p> This line will be preceded by a bullet.</p>
<p> This line will be preceded by a bullet.</p>

This will produce following black link:

This line will be preceded by a bullet.

This line will be preceded by a bullet.

This line will be preceded by a bullet.

The :after pseudo-element

Following is the example which demonstrates how to use :after element to add some content after any element .

<style type="text/css">
p:after
{
content: url(/https/it.scribd.com/images/bullet.gif)
}
</style>
<p> This line will be succeeded by a bullet.</p>
<p> This line will be succeeded by a bullet.</p>
<p> This line will be succeeded by a bullet.</p>

This will produce following black link:

This line will be succeeded by a bullet.

This line will be succeeded by a bullet.

This line will be succeeded by a bullet.