What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML,

It is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation (written in CSS). This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). The filename extension is .css

CSS RESOURCES

CSS Layouts vs. Table Layouts

When developing a web site one can choose between creating a CSS-based or TABLE-based web site. Both types of layouts have advantages and disadvantages and perform quite differently. They also raise (or address) accessibility issues.

- They're easy to use and implement (compared to css-layouts).

- WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors like Frontpage and Dreamweaver or HTML text editors like HTMLkit make it very easy for webmasters to include them.

- Tables "break" on various browsers (newer and older versions) thus producing layout dysfunctions.

- Increase almost unnecessarily the HTML/text ratio. This means that other options could be used to create layouts that produce smaller page files by employing less HTML tags.

- Widely supported by modern browsers but not by older browsers

- Allows extreme flexibility in positioning

- Increases usability by encouraging liquid design

- Keeps the HTMl/text ratio at a low level thus decreasing load time

- Allows the display of main content first while the graphics load afterwards

We see tables being used on over 95% of the websites on the net today. We see them being used on web sites with heavy content like news sites as well as on simpler sites like corporate sites or educational sites. Among the many issues related to tables, the most disturbing one (for users as well as web developers) is browser compatibility.

CSS-based layouts have been used until now for text formatting but recently, developers have started using it for positioning and layouts. CSS layouts are still difficult and time-consuming to implement but their advantages are certainly worth the trouble.

W3C advocated many times that tables shouldn't be use in HTML for layout purposes instead proposed css-based tableless layouts. The future of the web is "FULL CSS", and not TABLES, so you should start learning it now.

Using CSS can also avoid accessibility issues raised by table cells. When creating CSS-based web sites the content flows logically without disruption.

Use tables to layout web pages instead of using tableless designs.

Not everyone has time to learn all that it takes to create a sophisticated tableless design which includes:

• A thorough understanding of HTML.
• A thorough understanding of the W3C Box Model as well as the difference between Standards Mode and Quirks Mode, and the DOCTYPE switch.
• A thorough understanding of advanced CSS techniques like floating, positioning, negative margins and more.
• A thorough understanding of various CSS "hacks" that will keep your tableless design from falling to pieces when it's loaded in various different web browsers.

Tables should only be used in cases where there is no other viable alternative.