Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)

This volume has the elements for a great book. It has an interesting, but challenging subject and an author with in-depth experience in that subject area; however that doesn't always translate into a great result.

The format of the book is excellent. It has full color images of the referenced web pages, intelligent use of different fonts and illustrations, and snippets of code within the text. Even the left margin is used in an effective manner for further explanation, references to supporting websites, and useful insights.

Wyke-Smith explores the mysteries of the cascade, the secrets of the box model, and IDWIMIE with aplomb. He actually makes page layout and site design with CSS intelligible to non-designers (or anyone CSS-deficient). Designing forms for your site? No need to "table-up"; let CSS rescue you from having to abuse the table tag (or using the Microsoft "gridlayout"). You can create forms that look good and dynamically position themselves.

With an interesting writing style and a keen wit, the author shares his experience and achieves that great result. In 250+ pages plus appendix and index, this slender volume can take you from a CSS zero to hero.

Beginners as well as seasoned pros can learn CSS techniques in Stylin' to produce cleaner, easier to maintain web pages - with no tables! In some spots, the book is challenging, but stay with it and work through the examples. A great feature is that all the templates mentioned in Stylin' can be downloaded for free. These templates are complete, well commented pages with the CSS included.

The book flows logically from the first introduction of CSS through the completion of an actual web page with content and images. Stylin' also does a good job of explaining how Internet Explorer differs from standards compliant browsers such as Firefox, and how to use CSS and some Javascript so that your web page looks the same on both browsers.

This book is a must if you want to learn to separate content from presentation, create easy-to-maintain sites, and get rid of tables. I give it a strong recommendation for any web designer.

Charlie did it! He gave me my CSS rhythm. I read all the other books but something was missing. I found all I needed in Stylin. It is packed with the easy how to do it, what order, why it is done this way, and the results. The rhyme for reason is all there. Your steps will fall in place to enable you to create a clean, eye appealing, fast loading, pro looking site that the W3C will approve. What more do you want? You feel as if he is sitting next to you. Follow Charlie's steps and create your own great site. You can do it, I know you will after reading Stylin' with CSS. Thanks Charlie!

I have bought and read many HTML books over the years in an attempt to write even a simple web page or two, but with little success. HTML always seemed very clumsy and totally illogical. Layout code seemed to be repeated time and time again and could hardly be seen amongst the content (and vise versa). Then along came CSS - this, I thought, must be the way to do it!

A few more books on CSS later (Amazon are making a fortune out of me) but still no headway. The reason, I decided, was that all the books I had read were written by programmers (no disrespect, I do a bit myself). What I needed was a book written by a designer, someone who can tie together the XHTML and CSS from a designer's viewpoint but in a structured and logical way.

Enter Charles Wyke-Smith and Stylin' with CSS.

If any of the above description fits you, then this book is what you're looking for. The treatment is logical, well paced and above all relevant. It is written by someone who understands page design and shows you how to setup a descent web site using CSS. OK there are more typos in the first print than there should be, but they shouldn't throw you off course.

It is not the definitive design manual - it never pretends to be. It is an excellent book to start you on the right path to understanding CSS and using it correctly. I whole heartedly recommend it.

I've never written a book review before but feel compelled to comment on this one.

I think this book is fantastic. I'm a long time CSS coder (5+ years) but have always wanted to understand it and its nuances a lot better. Not only does this book explain all the fundamental principals clearly, it does so in a very readable way, thanks to the author's writing style. It's one of the rare technical books that I've actually read cover-to-cover. With all due respect to Eric Meyer who knows more than just about anyone about CSS, I've found that the style of his books just doesn't fit my reading style.

The reviewers who have complained about the lack of good design examples should read the Introduction where the author states (page xi) that "This is not a book about design, per se, but it is a book for designers...". In other words, this book is about teaching designers how to use CSS effectively, not about how to design (after all, if you're a designer then you already know how to design).

This book really just teaches all the fundamentals of CSS and it's up to you to use them to create as simple or complex designs as you desire. You really don't need any more than that.

This book is an incredible guide to writing Web code the right way from the design side. Most websites are so poorly coded, and most texts I've used to make sense of using XHTML/CSS have fallen short. But Stylin' delivers real-world, extremely useful examples like the drop down menus. You will walk away from this book understanding clearly how to structure your pages with clean, standardized markup (XHTML) and how to style them perfectly across clients (CSS). Imagine (for example) a dynamic dropdown menu built solely from a super-clean ul list!

One note: as will all books of this nature, make sure you visit the author's website for the few bits of errata first! This will ensure a good experience, as he is very responsive to his readers.

Stylin' with CSS is by far one of the better books I've looked at regarding CSS. Charles Wyke-Smith has a very simplistic style of explaining things making even the more complicated CSS subjects easily grasped after going over them a few times. The book suffers two downfalls however. Most importantly, this is not a book for those who learn by doing exercises. The book is filled with great examples showing you how things work and why, but they don't actually require you to apply the knowledge (which can lead to trouble remembering everything after you've completed the book). Another is the abundance of critical errors. The book's website has most of the corrections posted, but be sure to check and correct the errors in your book as some of them will cause your CSS to fail. Overall the book is highly recommended to venture into the world of designing with CSS.

Of all the books I've looked at, this one is hands down the best book out there. I just started reading it a few days ago and the way that Wyke describes all the concepts is easy to understand. He takes you from start to finish through a logical progression and all the topics build upon the ones before.

If you want to learn how to use CSS and XHTML in web design, this is the book for you.

I also bought Eric Meyer on CSS and this book assumes that you know CSS already. It may prove to be helpful in the future, but I should have stuck with just this one initially.

The style of the book is well laid out, and gets to the point pretty quickly with some practical beginner's concepts in the use of CSS.

CSS books have a tendency to waste a lot of paper preaching about the importance of separating design from logic and blah blah blah, whereas this one only skims that topic and gets into the basics of CSS positioning and styling within the first 2 chapters. Concepts such as the box model and CSS hacks are explained pretty clearly - at least they made more sense to me after reading those chapters.

My one issue with this book is that the author could have used a more appealing design to have the reader work on at the end - would have made a bit more sense given the need for CSS to be used in creating good looking layouts. Apart from that, it's a good read - but NOT for advanced CSS users.

This book is a quick, easy read - jam-packed with clear explanations and very visual examples. I've learned so much from it and re-read portions of it often.

It's probably geared towards beginners in CSS or someone, like me, who used CSS, but didn't fully understand the hows and whys of it.

I'm looking forward to Charles Wyke-Smith's next book: Codin' for the Web.

Before reading "Stylin' with CSS", I only had a vague idea of how to use CSS. As I started reading this book, I was able to apply this knowledge to building a new web site using CSS and the W3C "strict" standards. This is truly a "must read" for anyone who needs to learn CSS using real-world examples.
Excellent!

Is this book perfect? No. Is it very good? Yes. And if you are a newbe to CSS, it is excellent. I bought Stylin with CSS in order to refresh my memory and clean up my coding. I was looking for an intermediate CSS book. What I got was beginning to intermediate, and better than I expected.

Wyke-Smith has a light and easy writing style with just enough humor to keep things flowing, without letting the humor getting in the way of things. I have previously read Meyer‛s CSS2.0 Programmer‛s Reference and skimmed his Pocket Reference. I‛ve also read Castro‛s CSS chapters in her HTML / XHTML for the WWW & have worked with CSS a little before. These two Meyers books read like dictionaries. Castro is efficient and good. But I got far more out of Wyke-Smith in less time.

Part of what I got from Stylin made me think ‛Wow, that was easier than I thought‛. I picked up some ideas and some neat tricks which he properly credits to the source. There are some IE hacks to help handle the IE Win & Mac problems. All the examples are downloadable in one or more zips from his site. I have made a couple modifications to them for testing and clarifying some points which were important to me. I think Wyke-Smith really puts it together nicely and makes it useful. His book layouts are really helpful. Most pages have hints and comments in the margins next to or pointing at text, code and/or browser output. There are also several source references to web sites which are very helpful. So I feel Stylin is a very good value for the money, and more importantly, very good value for my precious time.

On the negative side, there are certainly some typos and editing errors in this first edition first printing. But there is an errata page on his site, and these kinds of errors seem to be all too common in first edition computer books. On the positive side, if you email him with an error, he will actually read it and write back with a thank-you. What a novel concept. He reports that he & the publisher are now working on cleaning up the errors in preparation for a second printing.

Lastly, I appreciate the fact that there seem to be no paid opinions or what look like personal friends‛ opinions of Stylin. That little bit of honesty is not present in the reviews of many other CSS books. Hint: Look behind each 4 or 5 star opinion before actually reading the opinion. For most computer books on Amazon you will find one or more reviews coming from people who write hundreds or thousands which are all high rated. My rules include distrusting all positive opinions in the first 3 to 6 months of publication, plus all high ratings from people who have only written one or a couple, plus all high ratings from people who never write low ratings. Don‛t be naive like I used to be. Prices are great here, but the Truth Is Not Guaranteed on this site.

This was about my fourth CSS book that I've bought, I think it is probably the best one I have found so far. Starts off simple with explaining the benefits of Standard Compliant coding and then dives into explaining CSS.

I would recomend it to anyone who wants to learn CSS.

I started learning about CSS and it's concepts from CSS Zen Garden but this book is what did it for me. I'm just learning CSS and figuring out how to apply it and this book took the cool concepts and made them real. It's a How-to book that I after I read it, I actually could!

I would highly recomend this book to anyone even thinking about learning css.

Charles does an excellent job of explaining things in this book. I have numerous books on css, and this one is the missing link. It covers and explains things better then any that I have read so far.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. You won't regret it.

I read many many books on this topic. This book is the only one that seems to be written by someone who actually builds websites with CSS. Not only are there plenty of actual real world examples, but the author addresses the problems that you immediately run into when you start to apply CSS to your designs. Everything from the "clearfix" to the IE6 idiosynchrosis that plague CSS web design. Sylin' with CSS is easily my first recommendation for people learning CSS.

I'm currently taking a CSS class online and often find myself scratching my head witht the 2 books required for the class - this NOT being one of them - I picked this one up on my own and now it's like - "Oh, so that's what those other books meant" - this one is easy to follow and understand - I'm a designer by trade - so any type of code makes my head hurt - this books makes it so much easier!

I really like this book and this author. I ordered his next book, Codin' for the Web, about building web sites with form validation, PHP, databases, and SQL, as soon as it was available last month. I hope he writes more books.

Let me say right off the bat that the errata complained about by other reviewers have been fixed in the second printing (still first edition). I am a very thorough proof-reader, and I think I only found one or two mistakes or typos in the whole book while reading it from cover to cover.

This is a book you can sit in an easy chair and read before you get up to go try the code on your computer. You can actually understand it as you read it. He's good at explaining concepts. You can get the overall idea before you start to code. (Not so with Gosselin's JavaScript book that was also a text for the same intermediate web programming course. The "aha" moments came only after slavishly typing in the exact code in the book to see what it would do.) With Stylin' for the Web you get the "aha" moment and then go try it.

You'll need a CSS reference eventually (like Visibone charts), but if you could only have one CSS book, I'd say this is it. (I also tell friends that if you could only have one cookbook, it'd be an older edition of Joy of Cooking. And if only one X/HTML book, it'd be Molly Holzschlag's (although "Head First HTML" may prove worthy competition.) Neil Bradley's XML Companion is in the same category, but it's out of print. I have yet to find a one-and-only JavaScript or PHP book.)

If you want to learn CSS, look no further. This book is easy to follow, for the beginner, or experienced programmer. A little HTML would be helpful, but that is all you really need. When I read this book, I knew a good amount of HTML, and I had touched upon CSS. I wish I had read it earlier. I finished it in two weeks, during my spare time, and now I can setup my pages with ease. If only I had know it would be this easy!

Great book for someone venturing into the world of CSS. The author is very good at explaining how things work, why they work, has good analogies and some web history to boot. He also explains what doesn't work with some browsers, and how to work around that (if possible). I can finally start using CSS beyond basic formatting here and there. I'm looking forward to getting his next book as well!

This is a great book for all levels. It explains everything clearly and Concisely. I always carry it around for reference.
It is a must-have book for a web developer.

This is a great book for anyone who would like to start learning CSS and build a real world web site.
GREAT BOOK!!!!!

I've gone through many times trying to learn CSS and each time I tried found a desire to through my computer out the window. I'm from the old school using tables to structure a site. Recently I had the need to try CSS again when implementing Movable Type. I have to admit trying to understand and customize the main index and style sheet of Movable Type caused me to cuss out loud a few times.

Most books tried to define CSS jargons with more web coding jargon. This book actually explains each jargon in layman's terms. It goes slow and have examples to back up the explanations. I've only read a few chapters but I'm actually understanding CSS and how it affects XHTML. Many other books have stated XHTML is for structure and CSS is for presentation, but not going any further in explanation. I'd always thought structure and presentation are the same. This book helped me understand it better as structure implies layout and presentation implies appearance.

There are a lot of sentences in this book that seem "run-ons". It took me a few read-overs to fully understand the meaning.

I bought this book sometime last month and I agree with one of the reviews that this is the first book I should have bought on Cascading Style Sheets.I have four other titles on the same subject and I have learned much from all of them, but this Author has a unique way of imparting the knowledge,even to a novice.This book does not read like a mantra,he gives you the code,applies it and "BOOM" you see the result. However,One bone I picked with the Author was on the issue of Opera browser.Though I use Firefox.IE 6 & 7,Safari and other less know browsers,Opera is my primary browser.On pages 82 and 83 where he discussed Font-Weight Property and the result of his experiment with different browsers,Opera was conspicuously missing, and I could not open the books website with Opera browser.The Author was kind enough to reply to my e-mail and allay my fears, because he assured me that he is looking into the Opera issue. In my opinion there is something in this book for every level,especially for beginners. Did I mention the excellent organization of the topics and the superb teaching method. This is one of the best.
emesobena

The explanations in this book leave very little to the imagination. In other words they are clear & concise & the author makes no assumptions about previous knowledge. I had read Elizabeth Castro's "XHTML & CSS" then Andy Budd's "CSS Mastery" & although they both gave me a good understanding of what can be done they failed to truly explain how to use markup & styling like this guy does. I like the fact that he doesn't seem like he's full of himself either. It really does take more than one book & a lot of hands on to get good at this stuff & I'd recommend this book as either the starting point for a beginner or to round off the edges of an intermediate designer.

One of the better CSS books I've picked up. I'm a long-time Html-er who erm...hasn't kept up with the times. I tried a few times to start using CSS/Style sheets, but frankly wasn't really picking it up and it seemed more work than it was worth. Of course now that I found a book that laid it all out clearly without bogging it down with too-much-info and kept it interesting I can definitely see that it's well worth the time to update my coding.

The examples are simple enough to follow, but interesting enough to *want* to follow. There are some goodies in the downloadable files that are invaluable (like the niftycorners). Well worth the purchase.

An absolutely brilliant book.

I would strongly recommend it to anyone struggling with CSS, not quite grasped it yet, or who's just completely new to building their own websites.

Very well illustrated, commented, and some great take-away resources such as style libraries etc.

Brilliant! :) You'll be coding your own XHTML and CSS in just a few days with this book.

Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)RE: Wyke-Smith's CSS Book: I've come to appreciate this book so much that I don't know where to begin in recommending it. I had read (studied) several books on how to mark up and style web pages, but not until I began reading this one did lingering questions finally get answered at the very outset. For Example, Chapter 2 "How CSS Works" masterfully gives you such insight into concepts like inheritance, the cascade, sequences, precedence, specificity, etc. that it inspires new-found confidence you can implement web design with precision. The author rightfully states "Truly understanding just a few techniques can turn a struggling newbie into a competent CSS journeyman." (THESE INSIGHTS ARE A GREAT TROUBLESHOOTING AID.) He teaches you how to exploit the latest W3C Standards so you can produce sleek and powerful styling. In 300 pages he describes, and abundantly illustrates in color, a wide range of the latest techniques helpful to experts as well as to beginners.(Read back cover for range of topics.) I found it hard to put this book down, and carried it everywhere. Once, I spilled coffee on it in a restaurant, but the paper quality is so good a few hours exposure to the sun restored it like new. Try comparing this book with others and you will see why I recommend it enthusiastically.

I looked at this book over at B&N and it got me hooked. Especially the chapter on how to do some basic page layout. I could not believe how simple it could be! The author really got me very interested and that eventually led to me buying this book. I'm glad I did. :-)

If you're a Java developer like me or a CSS beginner, this is a great book to get you started. It's really easy to read. Complex concepts are explained in an easy to understand fashion. And the author follows and breeds best practices. These and many others, make this book excellent.

The book is broken in 7 chapters.

The 1st chapter explains the basics of HTML, the different standards and how the page is structured. Simple chapter, but it's important to understand the basics.

The 2nd chapter, How CSS Works, is really a CSS 101. Basic stuff as well, but as in the first chapter, this is a fundamental knowledge.

Chapter 3 is more of a reference guide on how to style fonts and text. Some very useful info.

Chapter 4 is where the interesting stuff starts: positioning elements. An excellent overview of the box model and some good information about floating and clearing.

Chapter 5 is the best chapter in the book. It goes over several ways to create page layouts. Want to create a 2-column layout? A simple example is shown. How about a 3-column layout? 3-column liquid layout? With the techniques presented by Charles, you can create any type of a layout and you will actually understand what's going on. Really neat stuff.

In chapter 6, focus is on styling tables, forms, and menus. The author basically presents some techniques on how to style tables for tabular data, and explains the technique on how to create CSS menus. Good chapter to dive in when you're involved with these.

Chapter 7 summarizes the overall process of building a real site.

I learned several new techniques and tips from this book. I love how the book makes complicated things simple: this is my type of a book. Also, Charles has a good way of making sure these things come across and stay in your head. Not a simple thing to do, but he did a great job.

I love this book! It is easy to follow, the examples are simple yet thorough, and I "walked away" with the best understanding of CSS I've had (this is book 3). To that, as a bonus, this book is less than a third the size of the other two I've read. Even the page layout is superb. There is plenty of margin area for our notes, something I fill books with. Full color, good kerning and leading, I could go on. This is a great book. I just bought "Codin" and I am "chopping at the bit" to start it. Thank you Charles.

This book is a must have for any beginning to intermediate wanna-be web builders. It provides an excellent introduction to both CSS as well as XHTML using a light-hearted, almost nonchalant, approach. The author begins with the bare basics and builds on these basics with each successive chapter using examples as he goes. I found that there were a few small errors in code provided in the text, but the author very plainly states that the reader should download his code from the book's website and use that code for any examples. He makes any necessary updates to code provided in the book on his web site.

After finishing this great tutorial, I began applying what I had learned to a web site I built a couple of year ago and was in need of a good update. I used much of what I had learned and found a couple of problems in implementing some of the code from his drop-down menu lessons using nested ul (unordered list) tags. However, I went to the books web site and found a form on the `Contact Us' link. I described the problem and within a couple of days the author emailed me with the resolution.

Try it! You'll like it!

If you are learning from "scratch" to do your own simple website, this is the book for you - it lets you create what you want, explains how you can create the look you want to achieve, and allows you to finish the site with the graphics to make it pop! As a graphic designer, my area is print material, not web, but this allowed me to create my own web page for people to view my work and I'm currently working on another link to my web page for the sale or printed material - thanks Charles for making my life easier!

I just got my copy of Edition 2 and I haven't been able to put it down. This is one of the very best resources I've ever encountered for Web professionals. His descriptions are incredibly clear and accessible, and the information he provides is practical and useful. Thanks to Charles, I've learned to embrace CSS.

As a developer of web applications for 8 years, I have focused on the behind the scenes function primarily. Once I started paying more attention to the "experience" of the user and not just the functionality, I realized how much CSS really brought to the table as a design and implementation tool.

I've owned Charles' book for about a year now. This book has been both a great reference book for getting things done in the browser with CSS as well as a solid discussion of how best to use CSS and HTML for maximum effect.

I highly recommend this book if you are just starting out with web site design and creation. I also highly recommend it if you have already been working on web sites and need a good reference for CSS and tips/techniques about design and implementation.

You (if you're like me) have seen a ton of books on CSS. They repeat the basics without increasing you knowledge- or without telling you what you want to know. This book is different. You know the basics- Wyke-Smith tells you how to use create the pages you want. Finally a book that doesn't read like a spec sheet. To the author, Thanks.

Charles has a great presentation style that takes you through a step by step seperation of style sheets from HTML markup. The writing style was easy to follow, starting with fundamentals, and then moving on to more advanced styles.

The examples were created for CSS compliant browsers in the step by step, with explanations for the non-conforming gorilla. Then, hacks were provided to overcome lacking implementations.

There is a correction site published for the few minor mistakes that made. I would recommend that you go there FIRST and insert the corrections. And if you find something new, share the wealth.

Having tried to explain some of this myself, I am further impressed with Charles's ability to put an concepts into easy to understand English with a little humor now and then.

Thank you for a great quick step by step guide to CSS. I am a Sun certified Java Programmer and maintain a JUG web site and found this book most enlightening and expansive. Now when I look at a source page, I understand all the CSS code and how it cascades together.

This book is awesome! This book helped me write my son's web site. It has provided the best standards and practices for writing professional looking web sites. In addition, it is not one of those bulky books that has close 1000 pages of sometimes useless data; but it holds a ton information.

Title: Stylin' with CSS - A Designer's Guide
Author: Charles Wyke-Smith
Publisher: New Riders
ISBN: 0-321-30525-6
Pages: 265 pages
Reviewer: Philip High
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

I admit it. I`d rather read a really good "How To" book than the latest "Whatever Code" adventure. And for me, this title did not disappoint. Early into the attractive and logically designed pages I would have enthusiastically given out 5 stars. Unfortunately I had to pull back from that a little for a couple of reasons I will go into later. Still, for content and readability I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

I have been using CSS styles and style sheets for 6 or 7 years via Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Yet, I always felt I wasn't really maximizing their potential. And after reading this book I confess, I was basically clueless! Now I am enlightened; let the brethren rejoice. From now on, content and presentation will be safely segregated in my brain and on my web pages. Well, actually it might take a while to reach this Valhalla, but such is the quest of "Stylin' with CSS."

All of the essentials for implementing the power of Cascading Style Sheets are here. From basic text styles to total page control, including multi-column fluid layouts with drop-down roll-over menus floating in the horizontal center of a vertically tiled background image - Charles Wyke-Smith has got you covered. And any "deeper knowledge" not encoded here is conveniently referenced in the text and in the many, actually informative, sidebars. Can I get a witness?

Yes, the information is abundant. But, what really sets this book apart is the writing. The style is both clear and entertaining with the lessons building skillfully and solidly on each other. Code examples are helpfully separated from the text by paragraph style, font, and color, with new lines highlighted in red each time they are added. The author also makes use of the time-honored teaching technique of "tell `em what you're gonna tell `em - tell `em - then tell `em what you just told `em." Sound boring and redundant? Actually it's very effective and herewith handled transparently so that you don't even mind having your ignorance thrice pummeled!

I also appreciated the writer going beyond just the "how" of rules to include illuminating bits of "why," such as the move to XHTML and the rationale behind a "web standards" approach that separates content from presentation (to accommodate multiple platforms and media). And, do you know what pseudo-classes really are besides esoteric cryptology? They are styles that cause rules to be applied dynamically when certain events occur! Amazing!

Now for the stale bread and whiney part. The subtitle says this book is written for designers (i.e. me) but the examples are less than inspiring visually. I know, it's for clarity and focus. But at least a little "dazzle" would help to motivate the sometimes nodding back row. Thankfully there are some inspiring sites referenced for your own research. OK, forgiven. But the worst sin is that the glorious path to stylistic freedom is littered with piles of typos! I'm not just talking about the odd gum wrapper here. Sometimes it gets a little confusing and definitely distracting. Perhaps this is the result of contemporary budgets and schedules that have replaced hands-on editors with spell-check, but maybe we should reconsider and S L O W D O W N just a little.

I realize I point this out at my own peril as a frequent offender myself, but then nobody is paying to read this! To be fair, this is not the only book or publisher that suffers in this way. It's practically a trend! The author has gracefully acknowledged the problem on the related website and asked for feedback to improve the next edition. That website, by-the-way, also contains very helpful downloads of the written examples. So heaven smiles again. Final judgment - if you are a designer with beginning to intermediate web building skills and are interested in the fundamentals of CSS - get this book. Amen.

As a technical person who hasn't done much web development, I never quite got the knack of CSS. I'm used to programming with reference books and nothing else, but that never seemed to work for html, css, and java. Thanks to this book, I can now say I have a good grasp of the basics of CSS, and how it can be used for much more than just fonts and colors. It presents CSS from the ground up, with a great summary visual at the beginning of each chapter, and lots of pictures. Using this book, I was able to quickly create a couple of nice web sites uncluttered by style markup. Whether you're technical or not, this would be a great introduction to CSS.

This is a great book it takes from the basics to the more advanced CSS features. THe author always keeps you feeling confortable using plain english and advinving you what works and what doesn't on our "friend" internet explorer. Now i can say i have general knowledge about CSS . i really recommend it.

I really like this book. I've been a web designer for a while, but took a few years off, and technology passed me by. I'm trying to catch up with CSS and this book has been a GREAT source. It's very thorough, comprehensive. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I'm already revamping my company's website to incorporate CSS.

Wyke-Smith cover so much in a very small space. They give points other authors just skip over. This is a must have book if you really are interested in CSS.

As a visual person with no coding experience to shout, about I found Wyke-Smith's book an excellent resource explaining the why's and then the how's making it easy to apply the theory in practice.

Stylin' was easy to read with a sense of humour most computer books do not have. Visuals to explain things with highlights of colour was really helpful in honing in on important points.

What impressed me about Stylin' was that it explained the essentials about separating content and design elements but had the real world focus with some search engine elements added in.

For designers and people wanting to understand the concepts behind CSS this is an excellent book to start off with.

As other reviewers here did, I found Stylin' to be a thorough and detailed look at CSS, and more importantly, the use of CSS to separate presentation from content via XHTML. It's reasonably well written (although I could have done without some of the almost condescending spoon-feeding that Wyke-Smith employed in some areas), and I found it to be informative and useful.

However, I was very disappointed with the number of errors in the book. Most were typographical, and if I were the copy editor, I'd be embarrassed to have my name in the colophon. There are numerous punctuation problems, missing letters, and even a missing word in one case I noticed. Very unprofessional, frankly.

But in certain cases, the technical facts are also not quite 100%. In one instance early in the book, Wyke-Smith asserts that pixels and points are the same thing. They absolutely are not, which is why CSS allows you to specify fonts using either. Had he (or the technical reviewer) taken the time to compare 24 pixel type to 24 point type, simply by creating a style sheet with both and looking at the results in a real web page, they would understand that.

I recognize that it's a minor point, but it shows that the author has somewhat less command of the art than I would expect as a reader.

But looking past mistakes of that sort, I still find a book that has a great deal of useful information, presented in a readable format. The fact that the book is printed in full color on quality paper enhances the visual appeal of the book, as well as its usability, since colored type is used to very good effect to make various points more clear.

Perhaps in a future printing they can address some of the flaws, at which point it would definitely deserve a 5-star rating.

This is an excellent book that was recommended to me by a friend. When I began redesigning my website I found it to be helpful in showing me how to write and utilize CSS. This book is also great in the way of explaining the hacks needed to make your website appear the same in IE as it does in other web browsers. Highly recommended!

Before reading Stylin' with css, I had read CSS Anthology which I must say is very good book. But, reading styling with css made all the difference. The author really knows how to explain css jargons in layman English and I must also say that the illustration is excellent.With the book one can really start kicking with css.

In all, this is the best book I have read on css and I wish most computer books were written this way.Thanks Charles Wyke-Smith

When I first heard of CSS, I thought it was some obscure web coding plaything that I wouldn't have to waste any of my own brain cells on. How wrong I was. I began to suspect I was missing something when I realized that there were so many things I wanted to do (such as remove underlines from links), didn't know how to do, and discovered that CSS made the task easy.

So I headed to Amazon to find some books that might give me a leg up on CSS. I chose Stylin' and am well pleased with my choice. It is quite accessible and doesn't punish me for not knowing much HTML, and zero CSS. The author is quite friendly and clear. After a pleasent weekend reading Stylin', I had actually acquired a very clear idea on what CSS is and how to apply it to my own sites. I was never left scratching my head on what the author meant. It's really a great computer/web book.

If you are involved with a building a website and you don't know CSS yet, Stylin' provides a user-friendly way to learn it.

This book is easy to read and the pages have color throughout. There is a companion web site where you can download all the code, which really adds to the usefulness of the book. It is rare for a reference book to be engaging reading, but whoever laid out the pages here visually complemented the depth of material perfectly. I guess the author and publisher know that, as this is already the second edition of the book. Along with the second edition of Dan Cederholm's Bulletproof Web Design and CSS Mastery by Andy Budd, this is a great way to learn the ins and outs of CSS. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because I like books that build examples step by step, where this book gives the finished code all at once, then discusses notable parts of the markup.

I have read various books on CSS and this is by far my favorite. I feel that the author provided in-depth details on why, where and how CSS is used. I highly recommend this book and I am looking forward to purchasing the author's other book Codin' for the Web.

I bought this as a textbook for my web design class. I already know a lot about CSS, and so far I've only read the first chapter, but it seems extremely easy to understand. Each concept is explained (in plain English!) and technical terms are defined clearly. And when sample code is supplied, you've already read about each part of it and know WHY it's there. I recently bought a book from a different author and publisher on ActionScript 3.0, and its so abstract, I don't think I know much more about AS than I did at the beginning. Stylin' with CSS, on the other hand, has defined even the basics (that I already mostly knew) so well that I've learned a few things already. I was so impressed that I ordered Charles Wyke-Smith's other book, Codin' for the Web, right away. I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet, but I already know I'm going to learn quite a few things from it.

Most CSS tool books cater to the professional. While this book could teach many professionals a thing or two, it is an outstanding handbook for the amateur web builder, no matter how complex a website you imagine.

It helps you generate a clean, and changeable design in the simplest and most straightforward way possible. Good examples and good illustrations.

Clear and easy to understand, thorough in it's coverage. I read it twice and it really helped me more than any other CSS book or tutorial.

Charles Wyke-Smith definitely has away with disarming technical issues and instilling you with a desire and determination to accomplish your coding goals. This book explain CSS in a straight forward and easy to understand way and this book will continue to serve you well as a handy reference.

What a great book and easy read. The author assumes nothing and explains everything. I am more of an audio learner and reading this book was like having someone talk to me.

I read it cover to cover, taking notes and highlighting items to come back to when I'm at the screen working on my site. It's doubtful that I have ever before read a technical book so quickly (if ever in entirety).

As the title of my review states, this book provides - with its conversational tone and very clear writing - a delightful nuts-and-bolts take on important aspects of CSS coding. It really feels as if the author is at your side, even anticipating your questions along the way.

It helps if the reader has read at least one primer on (X)HTML and CSS before starting this book. A mark-up/presentation language newbie can certainly benefit from this book. But with an introductory text behind him or her, the reader can really appreciate the best-practice advice Charles Wyke-Smith has on offer here.

Can't wait to read the author's "Codin'" book.

I really like the book. It is simple and easy to understand. It is small so you can finish it, unlike most of coding books that are huge and imposible to finish

Charles Wyke-Smith has written a very clear CSS book. I thought it might be too elementary. No way! It helped me right from the first chapter, and I've been coding in CSS for 5 years. I'm so glad to have this new tool.

An indispensable resource!

Review rewritten for second edition January, 2008

The first edition of this book was excellent, a great place to start for learning CSS and XHTML. It was the book that gave me the knowledge needed to use CSS effectively and start writing sites. I liked it so much I pre-ordered Second Edition and Amazon finally delivered it. The new edition is outstanding.

The content is updated and well structured. The author goes through all the steps for writing CSS and XHTML pages, including the ways to style a document, how to write CSS rules, how to specify fonts and assign text properties. He then discusses the box model and it pitfalls, as well as the all-important positioning properties. Then, it's time to start building pages. Charles discusses multi-column layouts, site architecture, and many other useful topics.

The book provides plenty of technical detail along with practical applications that are really useful. The author's writing style is clear and concise with a familiar tone. Also, the production values are excellent. The book has heavy paper, full color images, color coded text, and an efficient, friendly layout.

I've read several good CSS books. No book is perfect; but for me, this is the keeper. [...].

Great seller book arrived as fast as amazon 2 day shipping. The book itself was in excellent condition, I will buy something from this seller in the future.

This book is easy to follow and gets into the nitty gritty of css. You'll be coding in no time, and will understand why you're doing what you're doing. I love it. It's so informative, and has given me the confidence to really run with css.

After struggling to teach myself css from three other books, I found "Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide." By far the best of the lot! Easily understood, excellent examples, concise tutorials and an up to date web site to support the book. What more could you ask?

This book explained to me how to write CSS code. It's well written, has scads of examples and there's a web site to download the examples. If you want to quickly learn CSS, I recommend this book.

this book is excellant. the author does a great job of teaching css by providing clear examples which build upon one another. he combines what and how with why and makes it fun in the process. this is a very efficient learning tool. i'll be sure to buy his coding book when it comes out. great job!

This is the ultimate CSS book! The author makes everything easy to understand like no other book! Background colors or pictures, hacks, margins, divs, spans, ids, anything having to do with CSS, you name it, he's got it! This book is easy to understand, funny, but yet you learn something from it! I sat in the book store for 2 hours looking through it! And, hey, I'm a twellve year old and it's easy for me to understand so you'll understand it too! You've gotta get the best web design book in the world!!!!! The choice is yours...

This book is good for beginners who are looking to style using CSS. I'm using it for a Web Publishing class and it provides easy steps to follow.

My even bedside book to learn CSS.
Very didactic, legible and written very well. T
he support archives are execelentes.
A very good book to learn to see, to think and to create pretty pages with the CSS aid.

This is the good book for learning Cascadig Style Sheet ...Recommend for beginner programmers

This is THE book to begging learning CSS. It gives you solid bases to understand how CSS works. Then you can buy some meyer book to get in depth information about it.

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