Styling HTML With CSS

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Chapter 3

Styling HTML with CSS


CSS was introduced together with HTML 4, to provide a better way to style HTML elements.
Styles were added to HTML 4.0 to solve a problem What is CSS?
 CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets
 CSS is a language that describes the style of an HTML document.
 CSS describes how HTML elements should be displayed.
 CSS is used to control the style of a web document in a simple and easy way.
Why Use CSS?
 CSS is used to define styles for your web pages, including the design, layout and variations
in display for different devices and screen sizes.
CSS Syntax and Selectors CSS Syntax
 A CSS rule-set consists of a selector and a declaration block:

 The selector points to the HTML element you want to style.


 The declaration block contains one or more declarations separated by semicolons.
 Each declaration includes a CSS property name and a value, separated by a colon.
 A CSS declaration always ends with a semicolon, and declaration blocks are surrounded
by curly braces.
Example
In this example all <p> elements will be center-aligned, with a red text color:
p { color: red;//declaration text-align:
center;
CSS Selectors
 CSS selectors are used to "find" (or select) HTML elements based on their element name,
id, class, attribute, and more.
The element Selector
 The element selector selects elements based on the element name.
Example
 You can select all <p> elements on a page like this (here, all <p> elements will be
centeraligned, with a red text color):
p { text-align:
center; color: red;
}
The id Selector
 The id selector uses the id attribute of an HTML element to select a specific element.
 The id of an element should be unique within a page, so the id selector is used to select one
unique element!
 To select an element with a specific id, write a hash (#) character, followed by the id of the
element.
Example
The style rule below will be applied to the HTML element with id="para1":
#para1 { text-
align: center;
color: red;
}
Note: An id name cannot start with a number!
The class Selector
 The class selector selects elements with a specific class attribute.
 To select elements with a specific class, write a period (.) character, followed by the name
of the class.
Example
 In this example all HTML elements with class="center" will be red and center-aligned:
.center { text-align: center; color: red; }
 You can also specify that only specific HTML elements should be affected by a class.
Example
 In this example only <p> elements with class="center" will be center-aligned:
p.center { text-
align: center;
color: red;
}
 HTML elements can also refer to more than one class.
 Example
 In this example the <p> element will be styled according to class="center" and to
class="large":
 <p class="center large">This paragraph refers to two classes.</p> Note: A class name
cannot start with a number!
Grouping Selectors
 If you have elements with the same style definitions, like this: h1 { text-align: center;
color: red;
}

h2 {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}

p{
text-align: center;
color: red;
}
 It will be better to group the selectors, to minimize the code.
 To group selectors, separate each selector with a comma.
 Example
 In this example we have grouped the selectors from the code above:
 h1, h2, p { text-align: center; color: red;
}
CSS Comments
 Comments are used to explain the code, and may help when you edit the source code at a
later date.
 Comments are ignored by browsers.
Example
 A CSS comment starts with /* and ends with */. Comments can also span multiple lines:
 p{
color: red;
/* This is a single-line comment */ text-
align: center;
}
CSS can be added to HTML in the following ways:
 Inline - using the style attribute in HTML elements
 Internal - using the <style> element in the <head> section
 External - using an external CSS file
 The preferred way to add CSS to HTML is to put CSS syntax in separate CSS files.
Inline Styles
 An inline style can be used if a unique style is to be applied to one single occurrence of
an element.
 To use inline styles, use the style attribute in the relevant tag. The style attribute can contain
any CSS property.
 The example below shows how to change the text color and the left margin of a paragraph:
<p style="color:blue;margin-left:20px;">This is a paragraph.</p>
HTML Style Example - Background Color
 The background-color property defines the background color for an element: Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body style="background-color:yellow;">
<h2 style="background-color:red;">This is a heading</h2>
<p style="background-color:green;"> This is a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
Internal Style Sheet
 An internal style sheet can be used if one single document has a unique style. Internal
styles are defined in the <head> section of an HTML page, by using the <style> tag, like
this:
<head> <style> body {background-
color:yellow;} p {color:blue;}
</style>
</head>
External Style Sheet
 An external style sheet is ideal when the style is applied to many pages.
 External Style Sheets can save a lot of work
 External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files
 With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire Web site by changing
one file.
 Each page must link to the style sheet using the <link> tag. The <link> tag goes inside the
<head> section:
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css">
</head>

Example mystle.css body {


background-color: lightblue;
} h1
{
color:
navy;
margi
n-
left:
20px;
}

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