CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web (Pocket Reference)

• #16 in Best Cascading Style Sheets Books

7 Reviews

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Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the W3C standard for the visual presentation of web pages, although it can be used in other situations too. The book begins with a short introduction to the basic concepts of CSS. What follows is an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 selectors, and finally an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 properties. This is a good handy reference once you understand CSS, but I wouldn't advise it as a sole source for novices. Instead, try "CSS: The Definitive Guide" in its latest edition for a very good all-round tutorial and reference. This book is for those occasions when you don't have time to go digging through the much larger "Definitive Guide" for short answers to questions. The table of contents is not currently shown for this book in the product description, so I show that next:

Chapter 1. CSS Pocket Reference
Section 1.1. Conventions Used in This Book
Section 1.2. Safari Books Online
Section 1.3. Adding Styles to HTML and XHTML
Section 1.4. Rule Structure
Section 1.5. Style Precedence
Section 1.6. Element Classification
Section 1.7. Element Display Roles
Section 1.8. Basic Visual Layout
Section 1.9. Floating Rules
Section 1.10. Positioning Rules
Section 1.11. Table Layout
Section 1.12. Values
Section 1.13. Selectors
Section 1.14. Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements
Section 1.15. Property Reference
Section 1.16. Tables
Section 1.17. Paged Media
Section 1.18. Dropped from CSS2.1
Section 1.19. Visual Styles
Section 1.20. Paged Media
Section 1.21. Aural Styles
Index

For a small book, CSS Pocket Reference packs a lot of information.

The author, Eric A. Meyer, thoughtfully provides a basic CSS primer in the first 33 pages of the reference.

A must have, go anywhere, reference for every web page author/designer.

I suggest reading the definitive guide first but I keep this pocket version on my desk (well, I know it's around here somewhere). A useful quick reference for web designers that have abandoned the outmoded world of tables-based layout.

The CSS Pocket Reference is just that, a "reference". It is not a lesson guide on using CSS. It will give you the quick syntax when you need it. It also gives a list of the browsers that support each element. Very helpful if you want your page to be compatible with more than one browser.

You can't go wrong with this one-stop shopping reference book on CSS. You need to know or, at least, have a familiarity with CSS to take advantage of this tool. Highly recommended for CSS geeks & web designers. Eric Meyer is The Man.

It must be very hard to pack the perfect reference about CSS in a small book that you can fit in your pocket. But this Pocket Reference about CSS by Web legend Eric A. Meyer himself is very close to being perfect.

The information on it is impeccable and serves as a great resource for those who what they are looking for (think of it as a dictionary). However, if you are clueless about CSS and want to learn from scratch, look elsewhere (his title CSS Web Site Design Hands on Training (Hands-On Training) is a very good starting point) as there are no concessions made her for newbies nor any illustrations to help you visualize the impact that changing things in a CSS expression can have.

Exactly what I was looking for - all the codes needed for CSS at my fingertips, in a compact, easy to carry size. Great reference!