Cascading Style Sheets

(CSS)
September 1, 2021
Topics covered
● CSS Introduction
● CSS Syntax – Selectors
● CSS Inclusion - Associating Styles
● Setting Backgrounds using CSS
● Setting Fonts using CSS
● Manipulating Text using CSS
● CSS – Images
● CSS – Links
● CSS – Box Model
CSS Introduction
● Cascading Style Sheets, fondly referred to as CSS, is a simple design language
intended to simplify the process of making web pages presentable.
● CSS handles the look and feel part of a web page. Using CSS, you can control the
color of the text, the style of fonts, the spacing between paragraphs, how columns
are sized and laid out, what background images or colors are used, as well as a
variety of other effects.
● CSS is easy to learn and understand but it provides powerful control over the
presentation of an HTML document. Most commonly, CSS is combined with the
markup languages HTML or XHTML.
CSS Introduction
● CSS is created and maintained through a group of people within the W3C called the
CSS Working Group. The CSS Working Group creates documents called specifications.
When a specification has been discussed and officially ratified by W3C members, it
becomes a recommendation.
● These ratified specifications are called recommendations because the W3C has no
control over the actual implementation of the language. Independent companies
and organizations create that software.

NOTE: The World Wide Web Association, or W3C is a group that makes recommendations
about how the Internet works and how it should evolve.
CSS Introduction
● Cascading Style Sheets, level 1 (CSS1) was came out of W3C as a recommendation in
December 1996. This version describes the CSS language as well as a simple visual
formatting model for all the HTML tags.
● CSS2 was became a W3C recommendation in May 1998 and builds on CSS1. This
version adds support for media-specific style sheets e.g. printers and aural devices,
downloadable fonts, element positioning and tables.
Advantages of CSS
CSS SAVE TIME: You can write CSS once and then reuse same sheet in multiple HTML
pages. You can define a style for each HTML element and apply it to as many Web pages
as you want.

PAGES LOAD FASTER: If you are using CSS, you do not need to write HTML tag attributes
every time. Just write one CSS rule of a tag and apply to all the occurrences of that tag. So
less code means faster download times.

EASY MAINTENANCE: To make a global change, simply change the style, and all elements
in all the web pages will be updated automatically.
Advantages of CSS
SUPERIOR STYLES TO HTML: CSS has a much wider array of attributes than HTML so you
can give far better look to your HTML page in comparison of HTML attributes.

MULTIPLE DEVICE COMPATIBILITY: Style sheets allow content to be optimized for more
than one type of device. By using the same HTML document, different versions of a
website can be presented for handheld devices such as PDAs and cell phones or for
printing.

GLOBAL WEB STANDARDS: Now HTML attributes are being deprecated and it is being
recommended to use CSS. So it's a good idea to start using CSS in all the HTML pages to
make them compatible to future browsers.
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS
A CSS comprises of style rules that are interpreted by the browser and then applied to the
corresponding elements in your document. A style rule is made of three parts:

SELECTOR: A selector is an HTML tag at which style will be applied. This could be any tag
like <h1> or <table> etc.

PROPERTY: A property is a type of attribute of HTML tag. Put simply, all the HTML
attributes are converted into CSS properties. They could be color or border etc.

VALUE: Values are assigned to properties. For example color property can have value
either red or #F1F1F1 etc.
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Syntax)
● You can put CSS Style Rule Syntax as follows:

selector { property: value }

Example:

● You can define a table border as follows:

table{ border :1px solid #C00; }

CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Type Selectors)
● This is the same selector we have seen above. Again one more example to give a
color to all level 1 headings :

h1 {

color: #36CFFF;

}
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Universal Selectors)
● Rather than selecting elements of a specific type, the universal selector quite simply
matches the name of any element type

*{

color: #36CFFF;

● This rule renders the content of every element in our document in black.
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Descendant Selectors)
● Suppose you want to apply a style rule to a particular element only when it lies
inside particular element. As given in the following example, style rule will apply to
<em> element only when it lies inside <ul> tag.

ul em{

color: #36CFFF;

}
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Class Selectors)
● You can define style rules based on the class attribute of the elements. All the
elements having that class will be formatted according to the defined rule.

.black {
color: #36CFFF;
}
H1.black {
color: green;
}
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Class Selectors)
● This rule renders the content in black for only <h1> elements with class attribute set
to black.
● You can apply more than one class selectors to given element.

<p class= "center bold“ >This para will be styled by the classes center and bold. </p>
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (ID Selectors)
● This rule renders the content in black for every element with id attribute set to black
in our document. You can make it a bit more particular.

#black {color: #36CFFF;}

h1#black {color: #36CFFF;}

● The true power of id selectors is when they are used as the groundwork for
descendant selectors

#black h2 {color: #36CFFF;}

● In this example all level 2 headings will be displayed in black color only when those
headings will lie within tags having id attribute set to black.
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Child Selectors)
● You have seen descendant selectors. There is one more type of selectors which is
very similar to descendants but have different functionality

Body> p {color: #36CFFF; }

● This rule will render all the paragraphs in black if they are direct child of <body>
element. Other paragraphs put inside other elements like <div> or <td> etc. would
not have any effect of this rule.
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Multiple Style Rules)
● You may need to define multiple style rules for a single element. You can define
these rules to combine multiple properties and corresponding values into a single
block as defined
h1{
color: #36CFFF;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
text-transform: #36cff;
}
CSS SYNTAX – SELECTORS (Grouping Selectors)
● You can apply a style to many ● You can combine various class
selectors if you like. Just separate selectors together as shown below:
the selectors with a comma. #content, #footer , #supplement {
h1 , h2 , h3 { position: absolute;
color: #36CFFF; left: 510px;
font-weight: normal; width: 200px ;
letter-spacing: .4em; }
text-transform: #36cff;
}
CSS INCLUSION – ASSOCIATING STYLES (embedded css)
● There are four ways to associate styles with your HTML document. Most commonly
used methods are inline CSS and External CSS.
● You can put your CSS rules into an HTML document using the <style> element. This
tag is placed inside <head>...</head> tags. Rules defined using this syntax will be
applied to all the elements available in the document

<head>
<style type="text/css" media="all"> h1{ color: #36C; } </style>
</head>
CSS INCLUSION – ASSOCIATING STYLES (Inline CSS )
● You can use style attribute of any HTML element to define style rules. These rules
will be applied to that element only. Here is the generic syntax:

<h1 style ="color:#36C;"> This is inline CSS </h1>

CSS INCLUSION – ASSOCIATING STYLES ( External CSS )
● The <link> element can be used to include an external stylesheet file in your HTML document.
● An external style sheet is a separate text file with .css extension. You define all the Style rules
within this text file and then you can include this file in any HTML document using <link>
element.
● Consider a simple style sheet file with a name mystyle.css having the following rules:
h1 , h2 , h3 {
color: #36CFFF;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
text-transform: #36cff;
}
● Now you can include this file mystyle.css in any HTML document as follows:
● <head> <link type="text/css" href="mystyle.css" media="all" /> </head>
CSS INCLUSION – ASSOCIATING STYLES (Imported CSS )
● Imported CSS - @import Rule:
● @import is used to import an external stylesheet in a manner similar to the <link>
element. Here is the generic syntax of @import rule.
<head> <@import "URL"; </head>
● Here URL is the URL of the style sheet file having style rules. You can use another
syntax as well:
<head> <@import url("URL"); </head>
EXAMPLE:
● Following is the example showing you how to import a style sheet file into HTML
document:
<head> @import "mystyle.css"; </head>
CSS INCLUSION – ASSOCIATING STYLES (CSS Rules Overriding)
● We have discussed four ways to include stylesheet rules in a an HTML document.
Here is the rule to override any Style Sheet Rule.
● Any inline style sheet takes highest priority. So it will override any rule defined in
<style>...</style> tags or rules defined in any external style sheet file.
● Any rule defined in <style>...</style> tags will override rules defined in any external
style sheet file.
● Any rule defined in external style sheet file takes lowest priority and rules defined in
this file will be applied only when above two rules are not applicable.
● Many times you may need to put additional comments in your style sheet blocks. So
it is very easy to comment any part in style sheet. You simple put your comments
inside /*.....this is a comment in stylesheet.....*/.
SETTING BACKGROUNDS
● The background-color property is used to set the background color of an element.
● The background-image property is used to set the background image of an element.
● The background-repeat property is used to control the repetition of an image in the
background
● The background-position property is used to control the position of an image in the
background.
● The background-attachment property is used to control the scrolling of an image in
the background.
● The background property is used as shorthand to specify a number of other
background properties.
SETTING FONTS
● The font-family property is used to change the face of a font.
● The font-style property is used to make a font italic or oblique.
● The font-variant property is used to create a small-caps effect.
● The font-weight property is used to increase or decrease how bold or light a font
appears.
● The font-size property is used to increase or decrease the size of a font.
● The font property is used as shorthand to specify a number of other font properties.
MANIPULATING TEXT
● The color property is used to set the color of a text.
● The direction property is used to set the text direction.
● The letter-spacing property is used to add or subtract space between the letters that
make up a word.
● The word-spacing property is used to add or subtract space between the words of a
sentence.
● The text-align property is used to align the text of a document.
CSS - IMAGES, LINKS
● The border property is used to set the width of an image border.
● The height property is used to set the height of an image.
● The width property is used to set the width of an image.
● The :link Signifies unvisited hyperlinks.
● The :visited Signifies visited hyperlinks.
● The :hover Signifies an element that currently has the user's mouse pointer hovering
over it.
● The :active Signifies an element on which the user is currently clicking.
CSS – BOX MODEL (Border)
● The border properties allow you to specify how the border of the box representing
an element should look. There are three properties of a border you can change
● The border-color Specifies the color of a border.
● The border-style Specifies whether a border should be solid, dashed line, double
line, or one of the other possible values.
● The border-width Specifies the width of a border.
CSS – BOX MODEL (Margin)
● The margin property defines the space around an HTML element. It is possible to use
negative values to overlap content.
● The values of the margin property are not inherited by child elements.
● There are following four properties to set an element margin.
○ The margin A shorthand property for setting the margin properties in one declaration.
○ The margin-bottom Specifies the bottom margin of an element.
○ The margin-top Specifies the top margin of an element.
○ The margin-left Specifies the left margin of an element.
○ The margin-right Specifies the right margin of an element.
CSS – BOX MODEL (Paddings)
● The padding property allows you to specify how much space should appear between
the content of an element and its border:
● There are following five CSS properties which can be used to control lists:
○ The padding-bottom Specifies the bottom padding of an element.
○ The padding-top Specifies the top padding of an element.
○ The padding-left Specifies the left padding of an element.
○ The padding-right Specifies the right padding of an element.
○ The padding Serves as shorthand for the preceding properties.
Assignment 1
● Explore and Document on Box Model in CSS. (Border, Margin, Padding).
● Create a z-index implemented page (3 boxes) .
!!! Thank You !!!