CONFIGURING COLOR AND TEXT WITH CSS

KEY CONCEPTS

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 Learning Outcomes

This week we introduce you to Cascading Style Sheet Rules

associated with color and text on web pages.
You will configure inline styles, embedded styles, and external
styles.
You will apply CSS style rues to HTML, class, id, and descendent
selectors.
You will be able to submit your CSS to the W3C CSS Validation test.

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 Learning Outcomes
In this lesson, you will learn how to . . .
◦ Describe the evolution of style sheets from print media to the Web
◦ List advantages of using Cascading Style Sheets
◦ Use color on web pages
◦ Create style sheets that configure common color and text properties
◦ Apply inline styles
◦ Use embedded style sheets
◦ Use external style sheets
◦ Configure element, class, id, and contextual selectors
◦ Utilize the “cascade” in CSS
◦ Validate CSS

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 Overview of
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
See what is possible with CSS:
◦ Visit http://www.csszengarden.com

Style Sheets
◦ used for years in Desktop Publishing
◦ apply typographical styles
and spacing to printed media

CSS
◦ provides the functionality of style sheets (and much more) for web
developers
◦ a flexible, cross-platform, standards-based language developed by
the W3C.

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 CSS
Advantages

Greater typography and page layout control

Style is separate from structure
Styles can be stored in a separate document
and associated with the web page
Potentially smaller documents
Easier site maintenance

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 Types of
Cascading Style Sheets

Inline Styles
Embedded Styles
External Styles
Imported Styles

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 Inline Styles
◦ body section
Cascading
◦ HTML style attribute
◦ apply only to the specific element
Style Sheets
 Embedded Styles
◦ head section
◦ HTML style element
◦ apply to the entire web page document

 External Styles
◦ Separate text file with .css file extension
◦ Associate with a HTML link element in the head section of a web page

◦ Imported Styles
◦ Similar to External Styles
◦ We’ll concentrate on the other three types of styles.

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 CSS Syntax

Style sheets are composed of "Rules" that describe the

styling to be applied.

Each Rule contains a Selector and a Declaration

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 CSS Syntax Sample

Configure a web page to display blue text and yellow background.

body { color: blue;
background-color: yellow; }
This could also be written using hexadecimal color values as
shown below.
body { color: #0000FF;
background-color: #FFFF00; }

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The color property
Color configures the text (foreground) color of an element
body { color: blue; }
Text in the body will be blue

Configure Background and Text Color

body {color:white;
background-color:orchid;
}
Text will be white on an orchid background

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 Common Formatting
CSS Properties
 See Table 3.1 Common CSS Properties, including:
◦ background-color Background color
◦ color Foreground (text color)
◦ font-family Name of a font
◦ font-size Size of font
◦ font-style Style of font
◦ font-weight Boldness or weight of font
◦ line-height Spacing allowed for line of text
◦ margin Configure margin around element
◦ text-align Alignment of text
◦ text-decoration Determine if text (hyperlink) underlined
◦ width Width of content of an element

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Using Color on Web Pages
Computer monitors display color as
intensities of red, green, and blue light
RGB Color
The values of red, green, and blue vary
from 0 to 255.
Hexadecimal numbers (base 16)
represent these color values.

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 Hexadecimal
Color Values
 # indicates a hexadecimal value
 Hex value pairs range from 00 to FF
 Three hex value pairs describe an RGB color
#000000 black #FFFFFF white
#FF0000 red #00FF00 green
#0000FF blue #CCCCCC grey

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 Web Color Palette
 A collection of 216 colors
 Display the most
similar
on the Mac and PC
platforms
 Hex values:
00, 33, 66, 99, CC, FF
 Color Chart
http://webdevfoundations.net/color

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Making Color Choices

How to choose a color scheme?

◦ Monochromatic
◦ http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/color-blend
◦ Choose from a photograph or other image
◦ http://www.colr.org
◦ Begin with a favorite color
◦ Use one of the sites below to choose other colors
◦ http://colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp
◦ https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel
◦ http://paletton.com

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 Support Web Accessiblity
Verify Sufficient Contrast
When you choose colors for text and background,
sufficient contrast is needed so that the text is easy
to read.
Use one of the following online tools to verify
contrast:
◦ http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker
◦ http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html
◦ http://juicystudio.com/services/luminositycontrastratio.php

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 Configuring Color with Inline CSS
Inline CSS
◦ Configured in the body of the web page
◦ Use the style attribute of an HTML tag
◦ Apply only to the specific element

The Style Attribute

◦ Value: one or more style declaration property and value pairs

Example: configure red color text in an <h1> element:

<h1 style="color:#ff0000">Heading text is red</h1>

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 Configuring Color with Inline CSS (2)

Example 2: configure the red text in the heading

configure a gray background in the heading
Separate style rule declarations with:

<h1 style="color:#FF0000;background-color:#cccccc">This is
displayed as a red heading with gray background</h1>

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 CSS Embedded(Internal) Styles
Configured in the head section of a web page.
Use the HTML <style> element
Apply to the entire web page document
Style declarations are contained between the opening
and closing <style> tags
Example: Configure a web page with white text on a black
background
<style>
body { background-color: #000000;
color: #FFFFFF;
}
</style>
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 CSS Embedded Styles
• The body selector sets the global
style rules for the entire page.

• These global rules are

overridden for <h1> and <h2>
elements by the h1 and h2 style
<style> rules.
body { background-color: #E6E6FA;
color: #191970;}
h1 { background-color: #191970;
color: #E6E6FA;}
h2 { background-color: #AEAED4;
color: #191970;}
</style>
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Checkpoint 3.1
1. List four reasons to use CSS on a web page.

Greater control of typography and page layout

Separation of style from structure
Smaller web page documents
Easier site maintenance

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Checkpoint 3.1
2. When designing a page that uses colors other than the
default colors for text and background, explain why it is a
good reason to configure style rules for both text color and
background color.
Visitors may set their browsers to certain colors.
Change both text color and background color properties
provide good contrast between text and background.

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Checkpoint 3.1
3. Describe one advantage to using embedded styles instead
of inline styles.
Embedded styles are coded once in the header section of the
web page and apply to the entire page.
This is more efficient than using inline styles to code
individual styles on HTML elements.

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 Configuring Text with CSS
CSS properties for configuring text:
◦ font-weight
◦ Configures the boldness of text
◦ font-style
◦ Configures text to an italic style
◦ font-size
◦ Configures the size of the text
◦ font-family
◦ Configures the font typeface of the text

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 The font-size Property
Accessibility Recommendation: Use em or percentage font sizes – these can be
easily enlarged in all browsers by users

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 The font-family Property

Not everyone has the same fonts installed in their computer

Configure a list of fonts and include a generic family name

p { font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; }

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 Embedded Styles
Example

<style>
body { background-color: #E6E6FA;
color: #191970;
font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; }
h1 { background-color: #191970;
color: #E6E6FA;
line-height: 200%;
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; }
h2 { background-color: #AEAED4;
color: #191970; text-align: center;
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; }
p {font-size: .90em; text-indent: 3em; }
ul {font-weight: bold; }
</style>

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 More CSS TEXT
Properties
◦ line-height
◦ Configures the height of the line of text
(use the value 200% to appear double-spaced)
◦ text-align
◦ Configures alignment of text within a block display element
◦ text-indent
◦ Configures the indentation of the first line of text
◦ text-decoration
◦ Modifies the appearance of text with an underline, overline, or line-through
◦ text-transform
◦ Configures the capitalization of text
◦ letter-spacing
◦ Configures space between text characters
◦ word-spacing
◦ Configures space between words
◦ text-shadow
◦ Configures a drop shadow on text

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 CSS Selectors
CSS style rules can be
configured for an:
◦HTML element selector
◦class selector
◦id selector
◦descendant selector

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 Using CSS with “class”
class Selector
◦ Apply a CSS <style>
rule to a certain "class" of .new { color: #FF0000;
elements on a web page font-style: italic;
◦ Does not associate the }
style to a specific HTML element </style>
Configure with .classname
◦ code CSS to create a class called “new” with red italic text.
Apply the class:
<p class=“new”>This is text is red and in italics</p>

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 Using CSS with “id”
id Selector
<style>
◦ Apply a CSS #new { color: #FF0000;
rule to ONE element font-size:2em;
on a web page. font-style: italic;
Configure with #id name }
</style>
◦ Code CSS to create an id called “new”
with red, large, italic text.

Apply the id:

<p id=“new”>This is text is red, large, and in italics</p>

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 CSS Descendant Selector
Specify an element within the context of its
container (parent) element.
AKA contextual selector <style>
#content p { color: #00ff00; }
The example configures a </style>
green text color only for
p tags located within an element assigned to the id named
content
Advantage of contextual selectors:
Reduces the number of classes and ids you need to apply in
the HTML

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 span element

Purpose:
◦ configure a specially formatted area displayed in-
line with other elements, such as within a
paragraph.

There is no additional empty space

above or below a span – it is inline
display.

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 span Element Example
Embedded CSS:
<style>
.companyname { font-weight: bold;
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;
font-size: 1.25em; }
</style>

HTML:
<p>Your needs are important to us at <span
class=“companyname">Acme Web Design</span>.
We will work with you to build your Web site.</p>

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 External Style Sheets - 1

CSS style rules are contained in a text

file separate from the HTML
documents.

The External Style Sheet text file:

◦ extension ".css"
◦ contains only style rules
◦ does not contain any HTML tags

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 External Style Sheets - 2
Multiple web pages can associate with
the same external style sheet file.
site.css
body {background-color:#E6E6FA; index.html
color:#000000;
font-family: Arial, sans-serif; clients.html
font-size:90%; }
h2 { color: #003366; }
nav { font-size: 16px; about.html
font-weight: bold; }

Etc…

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 link Element

A self-contained tag
Placed in the head section
Purpose: associates the external style
sheet file with the web page.
Example:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="color.css">

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 Using an External Style Sheet
External Style Sheet color.css

body { background-color: #0000FF;

color: #FFFFFF;
}

To associate the external style sheet called color.css,

the HTML code placed in the head section is:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="color.css">

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 Checkpoint 3.2
1. Describe a reason to use embedded styles. Explain
where embedded styles are placed on a web page.

Embedded styles can be used to configure the text and color

formatting for an entire web page.
Embedded styles are placed in the head section of a web
page.
The <style> tag is used to contain the CSS selectors and
properties that configure the embedded styles.

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 Checkpoint 3.2
2. Describe a reason to use external styles. Explain where external
styles are placed and how web pages indicate they are using
external styles.
External styles can be used to configure the text and color
formatting for some or all of the pages on a website in one
file.
This single file can be changed, and all the web pages associated
with it will display the new styles in the next time they are
rendered in a browser
External styles are placed in a separate text file that uses a .css file
extension.
Web pages use the <link> ta to indicate that they are using an
external style sheet.

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 Checkpoint 3.2
3. Write the code to configure a web page to use an external
style sheet called “mystyles.css”.

<link rel=“stylesheet” href = “mystyles.css”>

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 Centering Page Content with CSS

#container { margin-left: auto;

margin-right: auto;
width:80%; }

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The “Cascade”

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 W3C CSS Validation
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

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 Learning Outcomes
In this lesson, you learned how to . . .
◦ Describe the evolution of style sheets from print media to the Web
◦ List advantages of using Cascading Style Sheets
◦ Use color on web pages
◦ Create style sheets that configure common color and text properties
◦ Apply inline styles
◦ Use embedded style sheets
◦ Use external style sheets
◦ Configure element, class, id, and contextual selectors
◦ Utilize the “cascade” in CSS
◦ Validate CSS

45
 Summary

This lesson introduced you to Cascading Style Sheet Rules

associated with color and text on web pages.
You configured inline styles, embedded styles, and external styles.
You applied CSS style rues to HTML, class, id, and descendent
selectors.
You are able to submit your CSS to the W3C CSS Validation test.

46