what is CSS?

[confusedCSS]

hi.
i have just started in a quest to design my own site.
i have come along alot of information and i know a little HTML (just myspace codes really) but today i heard about CSS, but i have no idea what it does how much it costs or where to get it from. my serches have come up with free codes and what not or £275 (min) for the download. for that price i could just pay somone to make my site for me and save alot of hassle. is CSS available for free, what is the full extent it could help me and if its not free is it worth it for somone who just wants to make 1 site. also where can i buy it from other than a download. thanks

[pritaeas]

CSS does mark-up of your HTML. E.g. in your HTML you have an <a> tag. With CSS you can tell the browser how it should look (size, color, width, borders, etc.)

Get your information here: http://www.w3schools.com/css/

[PapaGeek]

When an HTML file is loaded into a browser, the browser uses an internal set of styles to determine how it is displayed. How much space to place between <p> tags, what fonts to use, what indents to use, etc. All of these style features can be overridden with attributes within the actual HTML tags. They can also be overridden with "style directive" placed in the HEAD section of the HTML file. The third way to override the default browser styles is to put all the "style directives" in a separate file, a CSS file, and then link that file to your HTML file. If your website is one page, this is unnecessary, but if it has two or more pages, you can use the same CSS file to change the look and feel, the style, of both pages at the same time.

Basically, you use standard HTML tags in the body of your website, then use the CSS file to re-define what those elements look like on "every page" of your website.

CSS is a great thing to learn early as you develop your website. As a first step, just use it to enhance the appearance of the "normal" html tags. Later you can learn about DIV and SPAN and how ID and CLASS can really make your pages pop and give you complete control over the appearance of the page.

[drjohn]

You don't "get" css from anywhere, you don't "download" it, you don't have any "cost", it just IS. I.E. it's part of how web sites are built.

It sounds like you need some tutorials on what css is and how to use it, and probably some basic html tutorials as well.

building a website without using css is a really bad idea, and it would take too long to explain every reason why it is a bad idea.

here's some places to get help with css

www.cssbasics.com
www.htmldog.com (includes htlm help too)
www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/

this is a good general guide to building a web site
www.webdesignfromscratch.com/basics/
and you could try reading every article there.

PS w3schools has much code that is out of date, although they do seem to be trying to get into the 21st century now. So if more modern sites contradict them, believe the more modern sites.

[almostbob]

like everybody else says
CSS is the language of layout
as html is the language of markup
its structured text, pretty easy to learn, pretty easy to build up into spectacular effects
all the drop down menus on this site are just css effects and <ul><li></li></ul> unordered lists

Theres nothing to buy, nothing to download except some helpscreens if you really get into it
you can write it in notepad if you must
or notepad2 notepad++ with code syntax highlighting, any ide, any purchased software you already have

Forward => to php & css (Gold)

[shironui]

In short, you use CSS to define your web page style. CSS=Cascading Style Sheet. In your CSS you define what ever <p>, <align>, <a href>, etc tag is, and that standardizes the look, without having to do all the in-line attributes.
I.E.
Instead of doing

<p><font family="georgia" size="2">

for every single paragraph, you can set the attrubutes for <p> in your CSS, making it so all you have to do is

<p>your text here</p>

and it will all look the same as every other <p> in your page.

[EmmaMadeleine]

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.

[diafol]

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.

I really hope you're not trying to pass off Wikipedia's entry as your own explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

Hmm.

[bettybarnes]

Cascading Style Sheet

[agbenaza]

CSS means Cascading Style Sheets. It is used to style and format web pages. You do not need to purchase any special software. Just like your HTML, a simple text editor can do your CSS for you. There are however some softwares available that make the styling much simpler.
Here are some of them:
Software programs to create / edit / test CSS.

1. CSS Syntax Checker for BBEdit and TextWrangler : freware; Mac ; Perl and AppleScript that allows you to syntax-check CSS files using the W3C’s CSS Validation Service.
2. CSSTidy : opensource; CSSTidy is a CSS parser and optimiser
3. CSS Tab Designer : freeware ; create css-based lists and tabs visually
4. CSSVista : freeware; edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.
5. DeLuxe Menus : $39.95 ; create Javascript menus.
6. Style Master : $59.95 ; complete workplace for designing, developing and debugging your CSS.
7. Style Studio CSS Editor : $49.99 ; CSS Editor is designed to make all your CSS and HTML tasks easier.
8. TopStyle : $79.95 ; HTML, xHTML and CSS Editing in a Single Program
9. Xyle scope at Cultured Code : $19.95 ; CSS Tool for analysis, debugging, and fine-tuning ; for Mac