If you own a website, you have undoubtedly heard or seen mentions of CSS. And, in case you don’t know, CSS stands for cascading style sheets.
Of course, the experienced web developers amongst you will know precisely what CSS means and what it does. But if the term cascading style sheets means nothing to you, the concept can be confusing. So, here’s a beginner’s guide to what CSS is and how it is used to simplify web design.
A Beginner’s Guide to CSS
- What is CSS?
- What Are the Benefits of CSS?
- Saves Time
- Pages Load Faster
- Simplifies Maintenance
- Maintains Consistency
- Adheres to Global Web Design Standards
- For What is CSS Used?
- How Does CSS Work?
- What Are the Differences Between CSS and HTML?
- Content Vs. Visuals
- Page Load Speeds
- Internal and External
- Interchangeability
- Ease of Use
- Conclusion
What is CSS?
CSS is a stylesheet language used to tell web browsers how a web page should be presented. In other words, it is the CSS that defines the appearance of a page.
Before CSS, almost every style attribute of a web page had to be defined on the individual page itself. So, there was an awful lot of repetition in website coding. But CSS allows developers to create style sheets containing style definitions that can be applied to all the pages on a site. So, the styling of text, lists, tables, and images can be defined and controlled centrally.
What Are the Benefits of CSS?
CSS separates the styling of a page from the content. So, the coding for each page is simplified. And styling across the website is constant and is controlled centrally. Here are the most significant benefits of developing a website using CSS to manage the styling of web pages.
Saves Time
There are many aspects of a website that are consistent across all pages. Indeed, a consistent look and feel is a critical element of good web design. But, without CSS, things like color, fonts sizes, element alignments, and border styles all had to be defined on every page. With CSS, however, styling options like these are specified only once, thus saving an enormous amount of development time.
Pages Load Faster
CSS eliminates the need to use HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tag attributes to define every aspect of the appearance of a page. So, individual pages contain less code, which improves the speed at which pages load. And page load speeds are critical for the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).
Simplifies Maintenance
As you might imagine, CSS dramatically simplifies the task of updating the appearance of a site. Suppose a global change in appearance was required, for example. If the formatting were coded in the HTML of every page, a global change would be an extremely time-consuming task. With CSS, however, only one piece of code would need modifying to alter the entire site.
Maintains Consistency
As mentioned above, consistency improves the user experience. But, if you attempt to format every page of a site individually, maintaining consistency can be challenging. But CSS enables centralized control of all the pages. So, when you change the styling of an element with CSS, that item’s appearance will be identical throughout the website.
Adheres to Global Web Design Standards
The use of HTML attributes is being depreciated. That means it is no longer best practice to use HTML attributes when CSS is available to the same job better. And in the future, some browsers may not correctly interpret deprecated HTML attributes. So, it is advisable to use CSS instead of HTML attributes because CSS is becoming the global standard.
For What is CSS Used?
The best way to describe CSS is the skin that goes over the bones of the content. Indeed, one of the beneficial attributes of CSS is that it separates the content from the styling. CSS, then, modifies the appearance of the HTML on a page. Typical CSS uses include determining the style of text, headlines, images, and other elements on a web page.
How Does CSS Work?
CSS is code that can be applied to HTML. And that code can be used at three primary levels, external, internal, or inline.
External style sheets are saved in separate files with the extension of CSS. The styling defined in external style sheets can be applied throughout all the pages of a website. When using an external stylesheet to format a page, the relevant stylesheet must be declared in the page’s header. And the code to do that might look something like this:
<head>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=mysitestyleone.css”>
</head>
Internal style sheets define the styling of a single page and are written into the header of the relevant page. The styling is applied to elements on the page according to the selectors. In the following example, the selectors are “Body” and “P,” so the styling will be applied accordingly to the body background and paragraph text.
<head>
<style>
Body background-color:AliceBlue;
P font-size:20px; color:Black;
</style>
</head>
Inline CSS will only apply to a single instance. And inline CSS styles are small pieces of code written into the line of HTML. For example, the following code formats only one headline.
<h1 style=”font-size:40px;color:Salmon;”>This Is a Salmon Colored Headline!</h1>
What Are the Differences Between CSS and HTML?
Some people mistakenly believe that HTML and CSS are the same things. However, HTML and CSS are two different languages that are used together in designing a website. Here are the principal differences between the two languages.
Content Vs. Visuals
HTML is used to define the structure and content of a web page. CSS, on the other hand, defines how that content will be displayed.
Page Load Speeds
HTML code generally takes up more space than CSS code. Consequently, using CSS to format web pages usually reduces up page load times.
Internal and External
CSS can be internal or external. So, one piece of CSS code can be applied to many pages. HTML code only applies to the one instance on the same page.
Interchangeability
You can have CSS code in an HTML file. However, you cannot have HTML code in a CSS style sheet.
Ease of Use
HTML is relatively easy to follow, even for a novice. However, the syntax and functions of CSS can be somewhat more confusing for people unfamiliar with the language.
Conclusion
The primary function of HTML is to create the basic structure of web pages. And then, CSS is applied over the top to control the appearance and layout of the pages. So, if you were building a house, HTML would build the foundations, walls, and ceilings. And CSS would be used to decorate the home. And, of course, a home can be redecorated at any time without the need for any structural changes.
