TopPage supports CSS (Cascading Style Sheet),
now the standard style sheet. A style sheet
makes it easy for you to change the appearance
of your Web pages at will and to unify the
appearance of the entire site. [Ref.] "Cascading style sheets"
This section contains the following topics:
Style sheets are useful technology for those
who design Web pages, because style sheets
make it possible for you to achieve elaborate
designs like those in magazines right on
your Web pages. See the following two figures.
Though they use the same HTML file, one uses
style sheet and the other does not.
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On this Web page, HTML describes the document
structure as follows:
|
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This Web page uses the same HTML as the preceding
page, but is designed as follows using
style
sheets:
|
Of course, it is now still possible to design
Web pages in HTML without the use of style
sheets. However, it is likely that in the
future, the HTML tags that control the appearance
will be abolished and that only a style sheet
will control the appearance of Web pages.
Thus, style sheet technology is likely to
be essential for anyone who creates Web pages.
The advantages of a style sheet are the following:
The last point is important. Tables are often
used for layout, but because the actual purpose
of a table is to present comparative data
precisely and concisely, using a table for
merely a layout design is an inappropriate
use of HTML. The size and thickness of text
is also often changed with the FONT tag when
headings should have been used, which is
another inappropriate use of HTML. With a
style sheet, however, you can lay out text,
graphics, and images in the positions you
prefer without using tables, and you can
freely change the designs of headings. With
a style sheet, you can enhance design while
using HTML correctly.
Despite the promise of style sheets for the future, only a few Web browsers can currently display them. Be aware of the following:
We thus recommend that you create Web pages
that can be displayed correctly even without
the use of a style sheet, according to the
following flow.