Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is all about laying out web pages by grouping and positioning objects. Unlike other languages, it does not use tables to present information. It is proved that by switching to a CSS layout, the average paper size decreases by 60%. CSS offers numerous benefits. So just keep counting.

CSS downloads faster than tables because of the following reasons:

• A CSS code generally involves less number of lines as compared to cumbersome tables.
• Browsers access tables twice before displaying their contents, once to work out their structure and once to determine their content.
• With CSS, you will have complete control of the order items download on to the screen. Make the content appear before slow-loading images and your site users will certainly welcome it.
• Tables encourage the use of spacer images to help in the positioning.
• Tables appear on the screen totally. No part of the table will be visible until the entire table is downloaded and rendered.
• All code to do with the layout can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up only once and then cached (stored) on the user’s computer. On the other hand, table layout stored in each HTML document, must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. So the downloading is very slow.

The use of web browsing through handheld devices is increasing rapidly. In 2008 alone, an approximately 58 million PDAs will be sold and one third of the world’s population will possess a wireless device. You can make an additional CSS document particularly for handheld devices, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document. This is not possible with a tabular layout. So CSS is more accessible.

Search engines can often find CSS-designed web pages more easily because, they usually have simpler and better structured HTML code. The search engine can then make a more educated guess as to what the web page is about. So all other things being equal, your web pages will be visible at the top in the search rankings with a CSS layout.

A CSS-driven web page is also print-friendly. When a user chooses to print a web page, a substitute CSS document can be called up. This document can specify only the page content to be appeared on the printed version and not its formatting, images and navigation.

For all webmasters out there! CSS makes your website more professional. With CSS, your websites will be loaded faster and easy to maintain. You save a lot of time and labor as a result of this. This in turn helps you earn a lot of money. CSS makes links of the website look more attractive and dynamic. Using CSS, you can slot in rollovers easily and effectively, without the need to use a single character of JavaScript. Thus, CSS gives your websites a professional look. It is a wise move to use CSS to keep pace with the current trends of the industry. All major browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer and Netscape recognize CSS at the moment and it is unquestionably safe for web designers to use CSS now.

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