color CSS: Cascading Style Sheets MDN

In this way, the same HTML document can be prepared identically for all possible media. Since the content and design are separate in this document, the code of the website is clearer. The related style language SASS offers even more possibilities, but it doesn’t entirely replace CSS. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a programming language that’s useful to determine the design of electronic documents. With the help of simple instructions – presented as clear source code – website elements such as layout, color, and typography can be adapted as is desired.

The documents affected are typically text files that get structure from a markup language, the most common of which is HTML, however, XML and SVG are also popular. In order to present the document to the user, CSS converts it from the text file into a useable form. With browsers, this presentation occurs on a computer screen, printer or projector. One of the goals of CSS is to allow users greater control over presentation. Someone who finds red italic headings difficult to read may apply a different style sheet. Browser extensions like Stylish and Stylus have been created to facilitate the management of such user style sheets.

Syntax and semantics

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. CSS is easy to learn and understand, but it provides what is css powerful control over the presentation of an HTML document. The CSS rules are held in a stylesheet, which is responsible for determining the appearance of the webpage. With some experience and training, the typical syntax for CSS becomes obvious.

CSS rules are read by a specific order of priority in a document (and hence the word “cascading” in Cascading Style Sheets). Usually, the rule that’s later in the CSS doc is the winner – unless the first rule is more specific. For example, you may have two rules in your CSS file that conflict – like setting the body font to blue and the paragraph font to green. In this case, the winning rule would be the paragraph font, because it’s more specific than body font. When CSS code is placed in a fully separate file, this is known as an external stylesheet. The file has a .css extension and is referenced via a element within the HTML.

Translations of CSS

With both skills, you’ll have the full suite required to get down to work designing and building websites. Unlike ID selectors, Class selectors select all elements with a matching class. Each of them applies to the elements that the selector applies to. In short, with CSS features you don’t need to repeatedly describe how individual elements look. This saves time, shortens the code, and makes it not as prone to errors. As the structure of at-rules varies widely, please see At-rule to find the syntax of the specific one you want.

Using CSS, you can control exactly how HTML elements look in the browser, presenting your markup using whatever design you like. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allows you to create great-looking web pages, but how does it work under the hood? This article explains what CSS is with a simple syntax example and also covers some key terms about the language.

Full CSS Tutorial

Specifies that the element selected by B is a descendant of the element selected by A, but is not necessarily a direct child. Specifies that the element selected by B is the direct child of the element selected by A. You can read more about file paths in the chapter HTML
File Paths. It can control the layout of multiple
web pages all at once. Try experimenting with different values to see how it changes the appearance.