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Updated: 11/13/2018 by Computer Hope: Tim Berners-Lee 1990

CSS is a style sheet language that can be used to describe the presentation of HTML documents, including how elements should be rendered on screen, paper, or in other media. CSS was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize the formatting of web pages. It allows web page authors to control the layout, colors, and fonts of web pages in a manner independent of its content. CSS works by associating rules with HTML elements. These rules govern how the content of specified elements should be displayed. CSS rules consist of selectors and declarations.

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92 views37 pages

Updated: 11/13/2018 by Computer Hope: Tim Berners-Lee 1990

CSS is a style sheet language that can be used to describe the presentation of HTML documents, including how elements should be rendered on screen, paper, or in other media. CSS was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize the formatting of web pages. It allows web page authors to control the layout, colors, and fonts of web pages in a manner independent of its content. CSS works by associating rules with HTML elements. These rules govern how the content of specified elements should be displayed. CSS rules consist of selectors and declarations.

Uploaded by

rajat sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HTML

Updated: 11/13/2018 by Computer Hope

First developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, HTML is


short for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is used to
create electronic documents (called pages) that are
displayed on the World Wide Web. Each page contains a
series of connections to other pages called hyperlinks.
Every web page you see on the Internet is written using
one version of HTML code or another.

HTML code ensures the proper formatting of text and


images so that your Internet browser may display
them as they are intended to look. Without HTML, a
browser would not know how to display text
as elements or load images or other elements. HTML
also provides a basic structure of the page, upon
which Cascading Style Sheets are overlaid to change
its appearance. One could think of HTML as the bones
(structure) of a web page, and CSS as its skin
(appearance).

 What does an HTML tag look like?

 What does HTML look like?


 What is HTML5?

 What does HTML5 look like?

 How to create and view HTML.

 Which file extensions are used with HTML?

 How to pronounce HTML.

 Related HTML pages.

 HTML and web design questions and answers.

What does an HTML tag look like?

As can be seen in the HTML tag example above, there


are not many components. Most HTML tags have an
opening tag containing the tag name, tag attributes, a
closing tag containing a forward slash, and the tag
name being closed. For tags that do not have a closing
tag like <img>, it is best practice to end the tag with a
forward slash.
Each tag is contained within a less than and greater
than angle brackets, and everything between the
opening and closing tag is displayed or affected by the
tag. In the example above, the <a> tag is creating a
link called "Computer Hope" that is pointing to the
hope.html file.

Tip

See our HTML and Web Design help page for a full listing of HTML tags.

What does HTML look like?


Below is an example of a basic web page written in
HTML with a description of each section and its
function.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01


Transitional//EN"
"https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html>

<head>

<title>Example page</title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;


charset=windows-1252">

</head>
<body>

<h1>This is a heading</h1>

<p>This is an example of a basic HTML page.</p>

</body>
</html>

The box above contains the key ingredients to a basic


web page. The first line (DOCTYPE) describes what
version of HTML the page was written in so that an
Internet browser can interpret the text that follows.
Next, the HTML opening tag lets the browser know
that it is reading HTML code. The HTML tag is
followed by the head section which contains
information about the page, such as its title, meta
tags, and where to locate the CSS file.
The body section is all content that is viewable on the
browser. For example, all the text you see here is
contained in the body tags. Finally, closing tags wrap
each element for proper syntax.

 See our HTML and Web Design help for a full listing

of HTML tags.

What is HTML5?
HTML5 is the update made to HTML from HTML4
(XHTML follows a different version numbering
scheme). It uses the same basic rules as HTML4, but
adds some new tags and attributes which allow for
better semantics and for dynamic elements that are
activated using JavaScript. New elements
include: <article>, <aside>, <audio>, <bdi>, <canvas>,
<datalist>, <details>, <embed>, <figure>, <figcaption>
, <footer>, <header>, <keygen>, <mark>, <meter>, <n
av>, <output>, <progress>, <rp>, <rt>, <ruby>, <time>
, <track>, <video>, and <wbr>. There are also new
input types for forms, which include tel, search, url, e-
mail, datetime, date, month, week, time, datetime-
local, number, range, and color.

With the increasing movement to keep structure and


style separate, some styling elements have been
removed, along with those that had accessibility
issues or saw very little use. These following elements
should no longer be used in HTML
code: <acronym>, <applet>, <basefont>, <big>, <cente
r>, <dir>, <font>, <frame>, <frameset>, <noframes>, <
strike>, and <tt>. HTML5 also simplifies the doctype
declaration to the tag in the following box.

<!doctype html>

What does HTML5 look like?


As shown below the HTML5 code is very similar to
the earlier HTML4 example, but is cleaner and has a
revised doctype tag.
<!doctype html>

<html>

<head>

<meta charset="utf-8">

<title>Example page</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>This is a heading</h1>

<p>This is an example of a basic HTML page.</p>

</body>

</html>

How to create and view HTML


Because HTML is a markup language, it can be created
and viewed in any text editor as long as it is saved
with a .htm or .html file extension. However, most
find it easier to design and create web pages in HTML
using an HTML editor.
Once the HTML file is created, it can be viewed locally
or uploaded to a web server to be viewed online using
a browser.

Which file extensions are used with HTML?


HTML files use either the .htm or .html file extension.
Older versions of Windows (Windows 3.x) only allow
three-letter file extensions, so they used .htm instead
of .html. However, both file extensions have the same
meaning, and either may be used today. That being
said, we recommend sticking to one naming
convention as certain web servers may prefer one
extension over the other.

Note

Web pages that are created using a scripting language like Perl, PHP, or Python have
a different extension even though they only show HTML in the source code.

How to pronounce HTML


HTML is pronounced as h-t-m-l (aitch-tee-em-el).

Tip

Because of the vowel sound when pronouncing HTML, you would use "an" instead of
"a" in front of the abbreviation in your writing.

Cascading Style Sheets


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search


"CSS" redirects here. For other uses, see CSS (disambiguation).
"Pseudo-element" redirects here. For pseudoelement symbols in chemistry, see Skeletal formula
§ Pseudoelement symbols.
For the use of CSS on Wikipedia, see Help:Cascading Style Sheets.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Filename extension .css

Internet media type text/css

Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) public.css

Developed by  Håkon Wium Lie


 Bert Bos
 World Wide Web Consortium

Initial release December 17, 1996; 22 years ago

Type of format Style sheet language

Standards  Level 1 (Recommendation)


 Level 2 (ditto)
 Level 2 Revision 1 (ditto)

Website www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

Cascading Style Sheets

 Style sheet
 CSS Zen Garden
 The Zen of CSS Design
Concepts

 box model
 image replacement
 flexbox
 grid

Philosophies

 Tableless
 Responsive
 "Holy grail"

Tools

 Sass
 Less
 Stylus
 CSSTidy

Comparisons

 CSS support
 Stylesheet languages

 Cascading Style Sheets

 v
 t
 e

HTML

 Dynamic HTML
 HTML5
o audio
o canvas
o video
 XHTML
o Basic
o Mobile Profile
o C-HTML
 HTML element
o span and div
 HTML attribute
 HTML frame
 HTML editor
 Character encodings
o Unicode
 Language code
 Document Object Model
 Browser Object Model
 Style sheets
o CSS
 Font family
 Web colors
 HTML scripting
 JavaScript
o WebGL
o WebCL
 W3C
o Validator
 WHATWG
 Quirks mode
 Web storage
 Rendering engine

Comparisons

 Document markup languages


 HTML support
 XHTML
o 1.1

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a
document written in a markup language like HTML.[1] CSS is a cornerstone technology of the World
Wide Web, alongside HTML and JavaScript.[2]
CSS is designed to enable the separation of presentation and content, including layout, colors,
and fonts.[3] This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in
the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple web pages to share formatting by
specifying the relevant CSS in a separate .css file, and reduce complexity and repetition in the
structural content.
Separation of formatting and content also makes it feasible to present the same markup page in
different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (via speech-
based browser or screen reader), and on Braille-based tactile devices. CSS also has rules for
alternate formatting if the content is accessed on a mobile device.[4]
The name cascading comes from the specified priority scheme to determine which style rule applies
if more than one rule matches a particular element. This cascading priority scheme is predictable.
The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Internet media
type (MIME type) text/css is registered for use with CSS by RFC 2318 (March 1998). The W3C
operates a free CSS validation service for CSS documents.[5]
In addition to HTML, other markup languages support the use of CSS including XHTML, plain
XML, SVG, and XUL.

Contents

 1Syntax
o 1.1Selector
o 1.2Declaration block
 1.2.1Length units
o 1.3Use
o 1.4Sources
o 1.5Specificity
 1.5.1Examples
o 1.6Inheritance
 1.6.1Example
o 1.7Whitespace
o 1.8Positioning
 1.8.1Position property
 1.8.2Float and clear
 2History
o 2.1Difficulty with adoption
o 2.2Variations
 2.2.1CSS 1
 2.2.2CSS 2
 2.2.3CSS 2.1
 2.2.4CSS 3
 2.2.5CSS 4
 3Browser support
 4Limitations
o 4.1Former issues
 5Advantages
 6Standardization
o 6.1Frameworks
o 6.2Design methodologies
 7References
 8Furtherreading
 9External links

Syntax[edit]
CSS has a simple syntax and uses a number of English keywords to specify the names of various
style properties.
A style sheet consists of a list of rules. Each rule or rule-set consists of one or more selectors, and
a declaration block.
Selector[edit]
In CSS, selectors declare which part of the markup a style applies to by matching tags and attributes
in the markup itself.
Selectors may apply to the following:

 all elements of a specific type, e.g. the second-level headers h2


 elements specified by attribute, in particular:
o id: an identifier unique within the document
o class: an identifier that can annotate multiple elements in a document
 elements depending on how they are placed relative to others in the document tree.
Classes and IDs are case-sensitive, start with letters, and can include alphanumeric characters,
hyphens and underscores. A class may apply to any number of instances of any elements. An ID
may only be applied to a single element.
Pseudo-classes are used in CSS selectors to permit formatting based on information that is not
contained in the document tree. One example of a widely used pseudo-class is :hover , which
identifies content only when the user "points to" the visible element, usually by holding the mouse
cursor over it. It is appended to a selector as in a:hover or #elementid:hover . A pseudo-class
classifies document elements, such as :link or :visited , whereas a pseudo-element makes a
selection that may consist of partial elements, such as ::first-line or ::first-letter .[6]
Selectors may be combined in many ways to achieve great specificity and flexibility.[7] Multiple
selectors may be joined in a spaced list to specify elements by location, element type, id, class, or
any combination thereof. The order of the selectors is important. For
example, div .myClass {color: red;} applies to all elements of class myClass that are inside
div elements, whereas .myClass div {color: red;} applies to all div elements that are in
elements of class myClass.
The following table provides a summary of selector syntax indicating usage and the version of CSS
that introduced it.[8]

Pattern Matches First


defined
in CSS
level

E an element of type E 1

an E element is the source anchor of a hyperlink of which the


E:link 1
target is not yet visited (:link) or already visited (:visited)

E:active an E element during certain user actions 1

E::first-line the first formatted line of an E element 1

E::first-letter the first formatted letter of an E element 1

.c all elements with class="c" 1

#myid the element with id="myid" 1

an E element whose class is "warning" (the document language


E.warning 1
specifies how class is determined)

E#myid an E element with ID equal to "myid" 1

E F an F element descendant of an E element 1

* any element 2

E[foo] an E element with a "foo" attribute 2


E[foo="bar"] an E element whose "foo" attribute value is exactly equal to "bar" 2

an E element whose "foo" attribute value is a list of whitespace-


E[foo~="bar"] 2
separated values, one of which is exactly equal to "bar"

an E element whose "foo" attribute has a hyphen-separated list of


E[foo|="en"] 2
values beginning (from the left) with "en"

E:first-child an E element, first child of its parent 2

an element of type E in language "fr" (the document language


E:lang(fr) 2
specifies how language is determined)

E::before generated content before an E element's content 2

E::after generated content after an E element's content 2

E > F an F element child of an E element 2

E + F an F element immediately preceded by an E element 2

an E element whose "foo" attribute value begins exactly with the


E[foo^="bar"] 3
string "bar"

an E element whose "foo" attribute value ends exactly with the


E[foo$="bar"] 3
string "bar"

an E element whose "foo" attribute value contains the substring


E[foo*="bar"] 3
"bar"
E:root an E element, root of the document 3

E:nth-child(n) an E element, the n-th child of its parent 3

E:nth-last- an E element, the n-th child of its parent, counting from the last
3
child(n) one

E:nth-of-type(n) an E element, the n-th sibling of its type 3

E:nth-last-of- an E element, the n-th sibling of its type, counting from the last
3
type(n) one

E:last-child an E element, last child of its parent 3

E:first-of-type an E element, first sibling of its type 3

E:last-of-type an E element, last sibling of its type 3

E:only-child an E element, only child of its parent 3

E:only-of-type an E element, only sibling of its type 3

E:empty an E element that has no children (including text nodes) 3

E:target an E element being the target of the referring URI 3

E:enabled a user interface element E that is enabled 3


E:disabled a user interface element E that is disabled 3

a user interface element E that is checked (for instance a radio-


E:checked 3
button or checkbox)

E:not(s) an E element that does not match simple selector s 3

E ~ F an F element preceded by an E element 3

Declaration block[edit]
A declaration block consists of a list of declarations in braces. Each declaration itself consists of
a property, a colon ( : ), and a value. If there are multiple declarations in a block, a semi-colon ( ; )
must be inserted to separate each declaration.[9]
Properties are specified in the CSS standard. Each property has a set of possible values. Some
properties can affect any type of element, and others apply only to particular groups of elements.[10]
Values may be keywords, such as "center" or "inherit", or numerical values, such as 200px (200
pixels), 50vw (50 percent of the viewport width) or 80% (80 percent of the parent element's width).
Color values can be specified with keywords (e.g. "red"), hexadecimal values (e.g. #FF0000, also
abbreviated as #F00), RGB values on a 0 to 255 scale (e.g. rgb(255, 0, 0) ), RGBA values that
specify both color and alpha transparency (e.g. rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.8) ), or HSL or HSLA values
(e.g. hsl(000, 100%, 50%) , hsla(000, 100%, 50%, 80%) ).[11]

Length units[edit]
Non-zero numeric values representing linear measures must include a length unit, which is either an
alphabetic code or abbreviation, as in 200px or 50vw ; or a percentage sign, as in 80% . Some units
– cm (centimetre); in (inch); mm (millimetre); pc (pica); and pt (point) – are absolute, which
means that the rendered dimension does not depend upon the structure of the page; others
– em (em); ex (ex) and px (pixel) – are relative, which means that factors such as the font size of a
parent element can affect the rendered measurement. These eight units were a feature of CSS
1[12] and retained in all subsequent revisions. The proposed CSS Values and Units Module Level 3
will, if adopted as a W3C Recommendation, provide seven further length
units: ch ; Q ; rem ; vh ; vmax ; vmin ; and vw .[13]

Use[edit]
Before CSS, nearly all presentational attributes of HTML documents were contained within the
HTML markup. All font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be
explicitly described, often repeatedly, within the HTML. CSS lets authors move much of that
information to another file, the style sheet, resulting in considerably simpler HTML.
For example, headings ( h1 elements), sub-headings ( h2 ), sub-sub-headings ( h3 ), etc., are defined
structurally using HTML. In print and on the screen, choice of font, size, color and emphasis for
these elements is presentational.
Before CSS, document authors who wanted to assign such typographic characteristics to, say,
all h2 headings had to repeat HTML presentational markup for each occurrence of that heading
type. This made documents more complex, larger, and more error-prone and difficult to maintain.
CSS allows the separation of presentation from structure. CSS can define color, font, text alignment,
size, borders, spacing, layout and many other typographic characteristics, and can do so
independently for on-screen and printed views. CSS also defines non-visual styles, such as reading
speed and emphasis for aural text readers. The W3C has now deprecated the use of all
presentational HTML markup.[14]
For example, under pre-CSS HTML, a heading element defined with red text would be written as:

<h1><font color="red"> Chapter 1. </font></h1>

Using CSS, the same element can be coded using style properties instead of HTML presentational
attributes:

<h1 style="color: red;"> Chapter 1. </h1>

The advantages of this may not be immediately clear (since the second form is actually more
verbose), but the power of CSS becomes more apparent when the style properties are placed in an
internal style element or, even better, an external CSS file. For example, suppose the document
contains the style element:

<style>
h1 {
color: red;
}
</style>

All h1 elements in the document will then automatically become red without requiring any explicit
code. If the author later wanted to make h1 elements blue instead, this could be done by changing
the style element to:

<style>
h1 {
color: blue;
}
</style>

rather than by laboriously going through the document and changing the color for each
individual h1 element.
The styles can also be placed in an external CSS file, as described below, and loaded using syntax
similar to:

<link href="path/to/file.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

This further decouples the styling from the HTML document, and makes it possible to restyle multiple
documents by simply editing a shared external CSS file.
Sources[edit]
CSS information can be provided from various sources. These sources can be the web browser, the
user and the author. The information from the author can be further classified into inline, media type,
importance, selector specificity, rule order, inheritance and property definition. CSS style information
can be in a separate document or it can be embedded into an HTML document. Multiple style sheets
can be imported. Different styles can be applied depending on the output device being used; for
example, the screen version can be quite different from the printed version, so that authors can tailor
the presentation appropriately for each medium.
The style sheet with the highest priority controls the content display. Declarations not set in the
highest priority source are passed on to a source of lower priority, such as the user agent style. The
process is called cascading.
One of the goals of CSS is to allow users greater control over presentation. Someone who finds red
italic headings difficult to read may apply a different style sheet. Depending on the browser and the
web site, a user may choose from various style sheets provided by the designers, or may remove all
added styles and view the site using the browser's default styling, or may override just the red italic
heading style without altering other attributes.

CSS priority scheme (highest to lowest)

Priority CSS source type Description

The " !important " annotation overwrites the previous


1 Importance
priority types

2 Inline A style applied to an HTML element via HTML "style" attribute

A property definition applies to all media types, unless a media


3 Media Type
specific CSS is defined

Most browsers have the accessibility feature: a user defined


4 User defined
CSS

A specific contextual selector ( #heading p ) overwrites


5 Selector specificity
generic definition

6 Rule order Last rule declaration has a higher priority


If a property is not specified, it is inherited from a parent
7 Parent inheritance
element

CSS property definition in


8 CSS rule or CSS inline style overwrites a default browser value
HTML document

The lowest priority: browser default value is determined by


9 Browser default
W3C initial value specifications

Specificity[edit]
Specificity refers to the relative weights of various rules.[15] It determines which styles apply to an
element when more than one rule could apply. Based on specification, a simple selector (e.g. H1)
has a specificity of 1, class selectors have a specificity of 1,0, and ID selectors a specificity of 1,0,0.
Because the specificity values do not carry over as in the decimal system, commas are used to
separate the "digits"[16] (a CSS rule having 11 elements and 11 classes would have a specificity of
11,11, not 121).
Thus the following rules selectors result in the indicated specificity:

Selectors Specificity

H1 {color: white;} 0, 0, 0, 1

P EM {color: green;} 0, 0, 0, 2

.grape {color: red;} 0, 0, 1, 0

P.bright {color: blue;} 0, 0, 1, 1

P.bright EM.dark {color: yellow;} 0, 0, 2, 2

#id218 {color: brown;} 0, 1, 0, 0


style=" " 1, 0, 0, 0

Examples[edit]
Consider this HTML fragment:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<style>
#xyz { color: blue; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p id="xyz" style="color: green;"> To demonstrate specificity </p>
</body>
</html>

In the above example, the declaration in the style attribute overrides the one in
the <style> element because it has a higher specificity, and thus, the paragraph appears green.

Inheritance[edit]
Inheritance is a key feature in CSS; it relies on the ancestor-descendant relationship to operate.
Inheritance is the mechanism by which properties are applied not only to a specified element, but
also to its descendants.[15] Inheritance relies on the document tree, which is the hierarchy
of XHTML elements in a page based on nesting. Descendant elements may inherit CSS property
values from any ancestor element enclosing them. In general, descendant elements inherit text-
related properties, but their box-related properties are not inherited. Properties that can be inherited
are color, font, letter-spacing, line-height, list-style, text-align, text-indent, text-transform, visibility,
white-space and word-spacing. Properties that cannot be inherited are background, border, display,
float and clear, height, and width, margin, min- and max-height and -width, outline, overflow,
padding, position, text-decoration, vertical-align and z-index.
Inheritance can be used to avoid declaring certain properties over and over again in a style sheet,
allowing for shorter CSS.
Inheritance in CSS is not the same as inheritance in class-based programming languages, where it
is possible to define class B as "like class A, but with modifications".[17] With CSS, it is possible to
style an element with "class A, but with modifications". However, it is not possible to define a
CSS class B like that, which could then be used to style multiple elements without having to repeat
the modifications.
Example[edit]
Given the following style sheet:

h1 {
color: pink;
}
Suppose there is an h1 element with an emphasizing element (em) inside:

<h1>
This is to <em>illustrate</em> inheritance
</h1>

If no color is assigned to the em element, the emphasized word "illustrate" inherits the color of the
parent element, h1. The style sheet h1 has the color pink, hence, the em element is likewise pink.
Whitespace[edit]
Whitespace between properties and selectors is ignored. This code snippet:

body{overflow:hidden;background:#000000;background-
image:url(images/bg.gif);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:left
top;}

is functionally equivalent to this one:

body {
overflow: hidden;
background-color: #000000;
background-image: url(images/bg.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: left top;
}

One common way to format CSS for readability is to indent each property and give it its own line. In
addition to formatting CSS for readability, shorthand properties can be used to write out the code
faster, which also gets processed more quickly when being rendered:[18]

body {
overflow: hidden;
background: #000 url(images/bg.gif) no-repeat left top;
}

Positioning[edit]
CSS 2.1 defines three positioning schemes:
Normal flow
Inline items are laid out in the same way as the letters in words in text, one after the other
across the available space until there is no more room, then starting a new line
below. Block items stack vertically, like paragraphs and like the items in a bulleted list.
Normal flow also includes relative positioning of block or inline items, and run-in boxes.
Floats
A floated item is taken out of the normal flow and shifted to the left or right as far as possible
in the space available. Other content then flows alongside the floated item.
Absolute positioning
An absolutely positioned item has no place in, and no effect on, the normal flow of other
items. It occupies its assigned position in its container independently of other items.[19]
Position property[edit]
There are four possible values of the position property. If an item is positioned in any
way other than static , then the further properties top , bottom , left ,
and right are used to specify offsets and positions.
Static
The default value places the item in the normal flow
Relative
The item is placed in the normal flow, and then shifted or offset from that position.
Subsequent flow items are laid out as if the item had not been moved.
Absolute
Specifies absolute positioning. The element is positioned in relation to its nearest non-static
ancestor.
Fixed
The item is absolutely positioned in a fixed position on the screen even as the rest of the
document is scrolled[19]
Float and clear[edit]
The float property may have one of three
values. Absolutely positioned or fixed items cannot be floated. Other
elements normally flow around floated items, unless they are prevented
from doing so by their clear property.
left
The item floats to the left of the line that it would have appeared in; other items may flow
around its right side.
right
The item floats to the right of the line that it would have appeared in; other items may flow
around its left side.
clear
Forces the element to appear underneath ('clear') floated elements to the left
( clear:left ), right ( clear:right ) or both sides ( clear:both ).[19][20]

History[edit]
Håkon Wium Lie, chief technical officer of the Opera Software
company and co-creator of the CSS web standards

CSS was first proposed by Håkon Wium Lie on October


10, 1994.[21] At the time, Lie was working with Tim Berners-
Lee at CERN.[22] Several other style sheet languages for
the web were proposed around the same time, and
discussions on public mailing lists and inside World Wide
Web Consortium resulted in the first W3C CSS
Recommendation (CSS1)[23] being released in 1996. In
particular, a proposal by Bert Bos was influential; he
became co-author of CSS1, and is regarded as co-creator
of CSS.[24]
Style sheets have existed in one form or another since the
beginnings of Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML) in the 1980s, and CSS was developed to provide
style sheets for the web.[25] One requirement for a web style
sheet language was for style sheets to come from different
sources on the web. Therefore, existing style sheet
languages like DSSSL and FOSI were not suitable. CSS,
on the other hand, let a document's style be influenced by
multiple style sheets by way of "cascading" styles.[25]
As HTML grew, it came to encompass a wider variety of
stylistic capabilities to meet the demands of web
developers. This evolution gave the designer more control
over site appearance, at the cost of more complex HTML.
Variations in web browser implementations, such
as ViolaWWW and WorldWideWeb,[26] made consistent site
appearance difficult, and users had less control over how
web content was displayed. The browser/editor developed
by Tim Berners-Lee had style sheets that were hard-coded
into the program. The style sheets could therefore not be
linked to documents on the web.[27] Robert Cailliau, also of
CERN, wanted to separate the structure from the
presentation so that different style sheets could describe
different presentation for printing, screen-based
presentations, and editors.[26]
Improving web presentation capabilities was a topic of
interest to many in the web community and nine different
style sheet languages were proposed on the www-style
mailing list.[25] Of these nine proposals, two were especially
influential on what became CSS: Cascading HTML Style
Sheets[21] and Stream-based Style Sheet Proposal
(SSP).[24][28] Two browsers served as testbeds for the initial
proposals; Lie worked with Yves Lafon to implement CSS
in Dave Raggett's Arena browser.[29][30][31] Bert Bos
implemented his own SSP proposal in
the Argo browser.[24] Thereafter, Lie and Bos worked
together to develop the CSS standard (the 'H' was
removed from the name because these style sheets could
also be applied to other markup languages besides
HTML).[22]
Lie's proposal was presented at the "Mosaic and the Web"
conference (later called WWW2) in Chicago, Illinois in
1994, and again with Bert Bos in 1995.[22] Around this time
the W3C was already being established, and took an
interest in the development of CSS. It organized a
workshop toward that end chaired by Steven Pemberton.
This resulted in W3C adding work on CSS to the
deliverables of the HTML editorial review board (ERB). Lie
and Bos were the primary technical staff on this aspect of
the project, with additional members, including Thomas
Reardon of Microsoft, participating as well. In August
1996, Netscape Communication Corporation presented an
alternative style sheet language called JavaScript Style
Sheets (JSSS).[22] The spec was never finished, and is
deprecated.[32] By the end of 1996, CSS was ready to
become official, and the CSS level 1 Recommendation was
published in December.
Development of HTML, CSS, and the DOM had all been
taking place in one group, the HTML Editorial Review
Board (ERB). Early in 1997, the ERB was split into three
working groups: HTML Working group, chaired by Dan
Connolly of W3C; DOM Working group, chaired by Lauren
Wood of SoftQuad; and CSS Working group, chaired
by Chris Lilley of W3C.
The CSS Working Group began tackling issues that had
not been addressed with CSS level 1, resulting in the
creation of CSS level 2 on November 4, 1997. It was
published as a W3C Recommendation on May 12, 1998.
CSS level 3, which was started in 1998, is still under
development as of 2014.
In 2005, the CSS Working Groups decided to enforce the
requirements for standards more strictly. This meant that
already published standards like CSS 2.1, CSS 3
Selectors, and CSS 3 Text were pulled back from
Candidate Recommendation to Working Draft level.
Difficulty with adoption[edit]
This article needs to
be updated. Please update this
article to reflect recent events
or newly available
information. (January 2019)

The CSS 1 specification was completed in 1996.


Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3[22] was released in that year,
featuring some limited support for CSS. IE 4 and Netscape
4.x added more support, but it was typically incomplete and
had many bugs that prevented CSS from being usefully
adopted. It was more than three years before any web
browser achieved near-full implementation of the
specification. Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh,
shipped in March 2000, was the first browser to have full
(better than 99 percent) CSS 1
support,[33] surpassing Opera, which had been the leader
since its introduction of CSS support fifteen months earlier.
Other browsers followed soon afterwards, and many of
them additionally implemented parts of CSS 2.[citation needed]
However, even when later 'version 5' web browsers began
to offer a fairly full implementation of CSS, they were still
incorrect in certain areas and were fraught with
inconsistencies, bugs and other quirks. Microsoft Internet
Explorer 5.x for Windows, as opposed to the very
different IE for Macintosh, had a flawed implementation of
the 'CSS box model', as compared with the CSS
standards. Such inconsistencies and variation in feature
support made it difficult for designers to achieve a
consistent appearance across browsers
and platforms without the use of workarounds termed CSS
hacks and filters. The IE/Windows box model bugs were so
serious that, when Internet Explorer 6 was released,
Microsoft introduced a backwards-compatible mode of
CSS interpretation ('quirks mode') alongside an alternative,
corrected 'standards mode'. Other non-Microsoft browsers
also provided such 'mode'-switch behavior capability. It
therefore became necessary for authors of HTML files to
ensure they contained special distinctive 'standards-
compliant CSS intended' marker to show that the authors
intended CSS to be interpreted correctly, in compliance
with standards, as opposed to being intended for the now
long-obsolete IE5/Windows browser. Without this marker,
web browsers that have the 'quirks mode'-switching
capability will size objects in web pages as IE5/Windows
would rather than following CSS standards.[citation needed]
Problems with patchy adoption of CSS, along with errata in
the original specification, led the W3C to revise the CSS 2
standard into CSS 2.1, which moved nearer to a working
snapshot of current CSS support in HTML browsers. Some
CSS 2 properties that no browser successfully
implemented were dropped, and in a few cases, defined
behaviors were changed to bring the standard into line with
the predominant existing implementations. CSS 2.1
became a Candidate Recommendation on February 25,
2004, but CSS 2.1 was pulled back to Working Draft status
on June 13, 2005,[34] and only returned to Candidate
Recommendation status on July 19, 2007.[35]
In addition to these problems, the .css extension was
used by a software product used to
convert PowerPoint files into Compact Slide Show
files,[36] so some web servers served all .css [37] as MIME
type application/x-pointplus [38] rather
than text/css .

Variations[edit]
CSS has various levels and profiles. Each level of CSS
builds upon the last, typically adding new features and
typically denoted as CSS 1, CSS 2, CSS 3, and CSS 4.
Profiles are typically a subset of one or more levels of CSS
built for a particular device or user interface. Currently
there are profiles for mobile devices, printers, and
television sets. Profiles should not be confused with media
types, which were added in CSS 2.
CSS 1[edit]
The first CSS specification to become an official W3C
Recommendation is CSS level 1, published on December
17, 1996. Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos are credited as
the original developers.[39][40] Among its capabilities are
support for

 Font properties such as typeface and emphasis


 Color of text, backgrounds, and other elements
 Text attributes such as spacing between words, letters,
and lines of text
 Alignment of text, images, tables and other elements
 Margin, border, padding, and positioning for most
elements
 Unique identification and generic classification of
groups of attributes
The W3C no longer maintains the CSS 1
Recommendation.[41]
CSS 2[edit]
CSS level 2 specification was developed by the W3C and
published as a recommendation in May 1998. A superset
of CSS 1, CSS 2 includes a number of new capabilities like
absolute, relative, and fixed positioning of elements and z-
index, the concept of media types, support for aural style
sheets (which were later replaced by the CSS 3 speech
modules)[42] and bidirectional text, and new font properties
such as shadows.
The W3C no longer maintains the CSS 2
recommendation.[43]
CSS 2.1[edit]
CSS level 2 revision 1, often referred to as "CSS 2.1", fixes
errors in CSS 2, removes poorly supported or not fully
interoperable features and adds already implemented
browser extensions to the specification. To comply with the
W3C Process for standardizing technical specifications,
CSS 2.1 went back and forth between Working Draft status
and Candidate Recommendation status for many years.
CSS 2.1 first became a Candidate Recommendation on
February 25, 2004, but it was reverted to a Working Draft
on June 13, 2005 for further review. It returned to
Candidate Recommendation on 19 July 2007 and then
updated twice in 2009. However, because changes and
clarifications were made, it again went back to Last Call
Working Draft on 7 December 2010.
CSS 2.1 went to Proposed Recommendation on 12 April
2011.[44] After being reviewed by the W3C Advisory
Committee, it was finally published as a W3C
Recommendation on 7 June 2011.[45]
CSS 2.1 was planned as the first and final revision of level
2—but low priority work on CSS 2.2 began in 2015.
CSS 3[edit]
Taxonomy and status of
CSS3 modules. ● Recommendation ● Candidate Recomm
endation ● Last Call ● Working Draft.
"CSS3" redirects here. For other uses, see CSS3
(disambiguation).
Unlike CSS 2, which is a large single specification defining
various features, CSS 3 is divided into several separate
documents called "modules". Each module adds new
capabilities or extends features defined in CSS 2,
preserving backward compatibility. Work on CSS level 3
started around the time of publication of the original CSS 2
recommendation. The earliest CSS 3 drafts were published
in June 1999.[46]
Due to the modularization, different modules have different
stability and statuses.[47]
Some modules have Candidate Recommendation (CR)
status and are considered moderately stable. At CR stage,
implementations are advised to drop vendor prefixes.[48]

Summary of main module-specifications[49]

Specificatio Dat
Module Status
n title e

CSS
Backgrounds
css3- Oct
and Borders Candidate Rec.
background 2017
Module Level
3

CSS basic box Jul


css3-box Working Draft
model 2018

CSS Cascading
css-cascade- and May
Candidate Rec.
3 Inheritance 2016
Level 3
Summary of main module-specifications[49]

Specificatio Dat
Module Status
n title e

CSS Color
Recommendatio Jun
css3-color Module Level
n 2018
3

CSS3
Generated
Jun
css3-content and Replaced Working Draft
2016
Content
Module

CSS Fonts
Recommendatio Sep
css-fonts-3 Module Level
n 2018
3

CSS
Generated
May
css3-gcpm Content for Working Draft
2014
Paged Media
Module

CSS Template
Mar
css3-layout Layout Note
2015
Module

css3-
Media Recommendatio Jun
mediaqueries
Queries n 2012
Summary of main module-specifications[49]

Specificatio Dat
Module Status
n title e

Media
mediaqueries Sep
Queries Level Candidate Rec.
-4 2017
4

Multi-column
css3- Layout May
Working Draft
multicol Module Level 2018
1

CSS Paged
Media Mar
css3-page Working Draft
Module Level 2013
3

Selectors Recommendatio Nov


selectors-3
Level 3 n 2018

Selectors Feb
selectors-4 Working Draft
Level 4 2018

CSS Basic User


Interface Recommendatio Jun
css3-ui
Module Level n 2018
3 (CSS3 UI)

CSS 4[edit]
There is no single, integrated CSS4
specification,[50] because it is split into separate "level 4"
modules.[51]
Because CSS3 split the CSS language's definition into
modules, the modules have been allowed to level
independently. Most modules are level 3—they build on
things from CSS 2.1. A few level-4 modules exist (such as
Image Values,[52][53] Backgrounds & Borders,[54] or
Selectors),[55] which build on the functionality of a preceding
level-3 module. Other modules defining entirely new
functionality, such as Flexbox, have been designated as
"level 1".[56]
The CSS Working Group sometimes publishes
"Snapshots", a collection of whole modules and parts of
other drafts that are considered stable, interoperably
implemented and hence ready to use. So far, five such
"best current practices" documents have been published as
Notes, in 2007,[57] 2010,[58] 2015,[59], 2017,[60] and 2018.[61]

Browser support[edit]
Further information: Comparison of web browser engines
(CSS support)
Each web browser uses a layout engine to render web
pages, and support for CSS functionality is not consistent
between them. Because browsers do not parse CSS
perfectly, multiple coding techniques have been developed
to target specific browsers with workarounds (commonly
known as CSS hacks or CSS filters). Adoption of new
functionality in CSS can be hindered by lack of support in
major browsers. For example, Internet Explorer was slow
to add support for many CSS 3 features, which slowed
adoption of those features and damaged the browser's
reputation among developers.[62] In order to ensure a
consistent experience for their users, web developers often
test their sites across multiple operating systems,
browsers, and browser versions, increasing development
time and complexity. Tools such as BrowserStack have
been built to reduce the complexity of maintaining these
environments.
In addition to these testing tools, many sites maintain lists
of browser support for specific CSS properties,
including CanIUse and the Mozilla Developer Network.
Additionally, the CSS 3 defines feature queries, which
provide an @supports directive that will allow developers
to target browsers with support for certain functionality
directly within their CSS.[63] CSS that is not supported by
older browsers can also sometimes be patched in using
JavaScript polyfills, which are pieces of JavaScript code
designed to make browsers behave consistently. These
workarounds—and the need to support fallback
functionality—can add complexity to development projects,
and consequently, companies frequently define a list of
browser versions that they will and will not support.
As websites adopt newer code standards that are
incompatible with older browsers, these browsers can be
cut off from accessing many of the resources on the web
(sometimes intentionally).[64] Many of the most popular sites
on the internet are not just visually degraded on older
browsers due to poor CSS support, but do not work at all,
in large part due to the evolution of JavaScript and other
web technologies.

Limitations[edit]
Some noted limitations of the current capabilities of CSS
include:
Selectors are unable to ascend
CSS currently offers no way to select a parent or ancestor of an element that satisfies certain
criteria.[65] CSS Selectors Level 4, which is still in Working Draft status, proposes such a
selector,[66] but only as part of the "complete" selector profile, not the "fast" profile used in
dynamic CSS styling.[67] A more advanced selector scheme (such as XPath) would enable
more sophisticated style sheets. The major reasons for the CSS Working Group previously
rejecting proposals for parent selectors are related to browser performance and incremental
rendering issues.[68]
Cannot explicitly declare new scope independently
of position
Scoping rules for properties such as z-index look for the closest parent element with a
position:absolute or position:relative attribute. This odd coupling has undesired effects. For
example, it is impossible to avoid declaring a new scope when one is forced to adjust an
element's position, preventing one from using the desired scope of a parent element.
Pseudo-class dynamic behavior not
controllable
CSS implements pseudo-classes that allow a degree of user feedback by conditional
application of alternate styles. One CSS pseudo-class, " :hover ", is dynamic (equivalent of
JavaScript "onmouseover") and has potential for abuse (e.g., implementing cursor-proximity
popups),[69] but CSS has no ability for a client to disable it (no "disable"-like property) or limit
its effects (no "nochange"-like values for each property).
Cannot name rules
There is no way to name a CSS rule, which would allow (for example) client-side scripts to
refer to the rule even if its selector changes.
Cannot include styles from a rule into
another rule
CSS styles often must be duplicated in several rules to achieve a desired effect, causing
additional maintenance and requiring more thorough testing. Some new CSS features were
proposed to solve this, but (as of February, 2016) are not yet implemented anywhere.[70]
Cannot target specific text without
altering markup
Besides the :first-letter pseudo-element, one cannot target specific ranges of text
without needing to utilize place-holder elements.
Former issues[edit]
Additionally, several more issues
were present in prior versions of
the CSS standard, but have been
alleviated:
Vertical control limitations
Though horizontal placement of elements was always generally easy to control, vertical
placement was frequently unintuitive, convoluted, or outright impossible. Simple tasks, such
as centering an element vertically or placing a footer no higher than bottom of the viewport
required either complicated and unintuitive style rules, or simple but widely unsupported
rules.[65] The Flexible Box Module improved the situation considerably and vertical control is
much more straightforward and supported in all of the modern browsers.[71] Older browsers
still have those issues, but most of those (mainly Internet Explorer 9 and below) are no
longer supported by their vendors.[72]
Absence of expressions
There was no standard ability to specify property values as simple expressions (such
as margin-left: 10% – 3em + 4px; ). This would be useful in a variety of cases, such
as calculating the size of columns subject to a constraint on the sum of all columns. Internet
Explorer versions 5 to 7 support a proprietary expression() statement,[73] with similar
functionality. This proprietary expression() statement is no longer supported from Internet
Explorer 8 onwards, except in compatibility modes. This decision was taken for "standards
compliance, browser performance, and security reasons".[73] However, a candidate
recommendation with a calc() value to address this limitation has been published by the CSS
WG[74] and has since been supported in all of the modern browsers.[75]
Lack of column
declaration
Although possible in current CSS 3 (using the column-count module),[76] layouts with
multiple columns can be complex to implement in CSS 2.1. With CSS 2.1, the process is
often done using floating elements, which are often rendered differently by different
browsers, different computer screen shapes, and different screen ratios set on standard
monitors. All of the modern browsers support this CSS 3 feature in one form or another.[77]

Advantages[edi
t]
Separation of
content from
presentation
Main article: Separation of presentation and content
CSS facilitates publication of content in multiple presentation formats based on nominal
parameters. Nominal parameters include explicit user preferences, different web browsers,
the type of device being used to view the content (a desktop computer or mobile device), the
geographic location of the user and many other variables.
Site-wide
consistency
Main article: Style sheet (web development)
When CSS is used effectively, in terms of inheritance and "cascading", a global style sheet
can be used to affect and style elements site-wide. If the situation arises that the styling of
the elements should be changed or adjusted, these changes can be made by editing rules in
the global style sheet. Before CSS, this sort of maintenance was more difficult, expensive
and time-consuming.
Band
widt
h
A stylesheet, internal or external, specifies the style once for a range of HTML elements
selected by class , type or relationship to others. This is much more efficient than repeating
style information inline for each occurrence of the element. An external stylesheet is usually
stored in the browser cache, and can therefore be used on multiple pages without being
reloaded, further reducing data transfer over a network.

Main article: Progressive enhancement


With a simple change of one line, a different style sheet can be used for the same page. This
has advantages for accessibility, as well as providing the ability to tailor a page or site to
different target devices. Furthermore, devices not able to understand the styling still display
the content.

CSS is used to control the style of a web document in a simple and easy way.
CSS is the acronym for "Cascading Style Sheet". This tutorial covers both the versions
CSS1,CSS2 and CSS3, and gives a complete understanding of CSS, starting from its
basics to advanced concepts.

Why to Learn 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 is a MUST for students and working professionals to become a great Software
Engineer specially when they are working in Web Development Domain. I will list down
some of the key advantages of learning CSS:
 Create Stunning Web site - 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, layout
designs,variations in display for different devices and screen sizes as well as a variety of
other effects.
 Become a web designer - If you want to start a carrer as a professional web designer, HTML
and CSS designing is a must skill.
 Control web - 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.
 Learn other languages - Once you understands the basic of HTML and CSS then other
related technologies like javascript, php, or angular are become easier to understand.

Hello World using CSS.


Just to give you a little excitement about CSS, I'm going to give you a small conventional
CSS Hello World program, You can try it using Demo link.
Live Demo
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>This is document title</title>
<style>
h1 {
color: #36CFFF;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Applications of CSS
As mentioned before, CSS is one of the most widely used style language over the web.
I'm going to list few of them here:
 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 it 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 a far better look to your HTML page in comparison to 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.

Audience
This CSS tutorial will help both students as well as professionals who want to make
their websites or personal blogs more attractive.

Prerequisites
You should be familiar with:

 Basic word processing using any text editor.


 How to create directories and files.
 How to navigate through different directories.
 Internet browsing using popular browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox.
 Developing simple Web Pages using HTML or XHTML.
If you are new to HTML and XHTML, then we would suggest you to go through our HTML
Tutorial or XHTML Tutorial first.
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, layout designs,variations in
display for different devices and screen sizes 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 it 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 a far better look to your HTML page in comparison to 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 the 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) 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 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.

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