CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used to format the presentation of a markup language document. It is applied to design web pages written in HTML, XHTML, as well as those written in XML.

CSS is basically designed to separate the document content and page layout of web pages. It is used to aid developers to describe fonts, font sizes, colors, layout and other document arrangement aspects. The separation of the content and the layout enables the designer to lighten his workload. It improves content accessibility, flexibility and decrease the complexity of the structure. CSS identifies a main method in controlling and finding out what style rules should be used if there is more than one rule that matched with one specific element. CSS specifications are taken care of by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

As HTML expanded, it made a variety of capacities to be able to link with the demands of web designers and developers. Its expansion made the developers skillful in a certain level. However, HTML has become difficult and complicated to develop and maintain. Another thing is that the web pages’ content differs in appearance as it appear in different web browsers. The design is not consistent.

Style sheet languages have been there since the start of 1970s. To enrich the presentation of web documents, nine different kinds of style sheet languages were made and recommended by the W3C. Among the nine proposals, two were made the bases of what have become the CSS namely, Cascading HTML Style Sheets (CHSS) and Stream-based Style Sheet Proposal (SSP). Hakon Wium Lie proposed the CHSS in October 1994 and SSP was made by Bert Bos. The two worked together to create the CSS. H in CHSS was removed since it was anticipated that it can be applied with other markup languages.

The CSS syntax uses English words. Thus, making it simple and easy to understand. The English keywords are used to denote style properties of CSS. A style sheet is a set of rules. Each rule has one or more selectors and a block of declaration. A block contains a set of semicolon-terminated declarations. Each declaration also contains a colon, a value and ends with a semicolon. CSS selectors are employed to specific elements, which the style applies to.

CSS has a lot to offer. All you have to do is to explore its properties. There is a lot of information in the web regarding CSS. Just help yourself!

Tags: Creating, CSS