Style sheets allow you to control the rendering,
e.g. fonts, colors, leading, margins, typefaces,
and other aspects of style,
of a Web document without compromising its structure.
Until
now,
content providers did not have the control they have in
print media over screen rendering.
A style sheet language offers a powerful and manageable way for authors,
artists and typographers to create the visual effects they want, e.g.
margins and indents
line spacing and length
background images and colors
fonts, font sizes, and font colors
... and much more.
You can embed a style sheet inside an HTML document, or insert a link
to an external style sheet that can influence any number of documents.
CSS is implemented in several browsers, including Microsoft
Internet Explorer 3/4, and Netscape Navigator 4.
Some of the benefits of using CSS:
Style sheets allow you to separate the style and layout of your HTML
files from their informational content.
You can define the look of a site in one file,
and change the whole site by changing just the one file.
But be careful of unexpected effects !
You can make all of your HTML layout and formatting changes in one
location, either in an external file referenced by any number of pages,
or the style can be applied to a specific section of text within
the body of a page.
The HTML code becomes simpler and more manageable because you
don't have to keep repeating tricks to control rendering in
your HTML files (except that you will need for a while to maintain
good presentation for older browsers).
Using relative measurements in your style sheet,
you can present your documents to look good on any monitor
at any resolution.
You have finer and more predictable control over presentation.
CSS has been designed to deal with issues which HTML was not.
Older browsers will simply ignore your style sheets so they will not
break existing pages.
The CSS style sheet mechanism allows readers
to influence the presentation of HTML documents.
Style sheets allow both
document authors and readers to specify
rendering rules for HTML documents.
Cascading
means that if both parties supply style sheets then the
browser will apply both,
using further rules for resolving conflicts.
Style sheets will allow companies to easily adopt a
house look and feel,
and this will help give readers a sense of where they
are and what they are reading.
Style sheets can be pointed to from Web documents via hyperlinks
and this will dramatically simplify the maintenance of Web sites.
If the company later changes the house style
they only need to make changes in one place.
The main document format on the Web, the
Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML), was intentionally designed as a simple language that favored
document structure over document presentation.
The enormous commercial interest in the Web has created an enormous
demand for enhanced presentations.
The definition of a common style sheet format for HTML documents
offers significant advantages over the many proprietary solutions
which currently exist.
Style sheets will also improve the printing of Web documents.
Paper has different properties than a computer screen and the
differences can be accounted for in a style sheet.
Web authors should be confident that their documents will look as good
on paper as they do on computer screens.
People with disabilities have better access to your pages.
Visually impaired Web users may need increased font sizes and will be
among the first to benefit from style sheets.
CSS provides a framework for speech style sheets.
A style sheet can produce rich aural presentations by describing
pauses
intonation,
and other components of speech along with non-speech sound cues.
