CSS or Cascading Style Sheet is kind of a high-sounding term especially to laymen. And it sure is. But simply put, CSS is a sort of HTML Tag Modification System that gives you a way to control and manage standard HTML tags.

Here is an example: let’s say you want to put italicized words on your page and make the words slightly smaller as compared to the majority of texts found on the same page. In old school HTML, that can be done similar to the example below:

<font size=”-2″><i>My favorite place.</i></font>

As pointed out, this is old school; so, instead of this one you can practically compose a style to make things a lot easier.

You can modify the manner by which the words inside the <i> tag appears. This is basically the reason why most developers say that CSS is a way of self-expression, a sort of owning HTML per se. With CSS, you need not make yourself a figurative prisoner of somebody else’s HTML. With CSS, the possibilities are almost virtually endless in terms of redefining and restructuring HTML in order to make any given HTML to appear the way you like. This makes CSS an exciting mode of self-expression among web developers.

Style: how defined?

The process can be simplified as follows:
You can enclose that portion of the text which you like to modify in tags. The tags practically define the style.
Make the style definition/s on the web page and, then, make the style definitions in an entirely separate file.

Which one should you choose?

As a piece of advice, the author feels that doing the first item above (enclosing the portion of the text…) will not make much of an advantage as it is easier to use conventional, old school HTML 3 coding.

If you place style definition/s on the very web page, such definition/s will apply to the rest of the tags found on that page. There’s nothing wrong with this if what you are composing is a single page. Nevertheless, you may also use this option for multiple pages if you are masochistic. But definitely you are not a masochist, right?.

What then is the more practical, convenient method?

The more practical approach is to compose individual page that defines your styles. You can then place this on the site and have it connected to all the pages of the site by means of a secret link. In CSS parlance, this is referred to as the Master Style Sheet. The Master Style Sheet controls the “how” of every piece of page of the site in terms of the appearance of each page. This is the “sleeping giant” in CSS.

Tags: CSS as a way to take control of HTML files