CSS: The Missing Manual

Product Reviews

Excellent
With books of this type I suppose that the satisfaction derived is a question of how much you learn and I learnt a lot! Suffice to say that this is the only time I have taken the trouble to write a review but this book really merits one. It is well written, well structured and has exactly what I needed. The examples are very good and are easy to implement in a real situation. The support on the publisher's web is also excellent.
[2010-09-03]

Best CSS book around
I have 7 CSS books and this is the best by a mile, clear and easy to understand suitable for readers of all levels, first timers and experts alike, my book is peppered with paperclip bookmarkers keeping invaluable information within easy reach. If you need to know about CSS get this book, it is that simple.

[2010-09-03]

Update to CSS
The web has changed since the days of pages designed with the use of only HTML and tables. The enhancements available using JaveScript are welcome. But now that most browsers and CSS compatible it's time to unleash the potential of this resource. David McFarland gives convincing arguments for abandoning inefficient time-wasting methods and using the power of CSS. His explanations and his tutorials are immensely valuable. This can be fully recommended.
[2010-08-31]

Brilliant
This book is amazing, brilliant examples, great length of chapters, loads of links to more reading
Buy It Now!
[2010-08-30]

Very useful
I bought this book because although I know some CSS and I had been learning bits of it from various tutorials on the internet, I felt that my understanding of CSS wasn't where I needed it to be. I am planning to get into freelancing, focussing on the WordPress platform. So I thought I would gain a much better understanding of the various aspects of CSS and in time become a much better designer.

When this book arrived, I was beside myself with excitement. First impressions were good. I instantly loved the writing style and even learned something new within the first pages even though I consider myself to be a novice with CSS (and intermediate for other aspects of web design).

I was a bit disappointed with the quality of the paper and the black and white images (which is why I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5) but I decided I could live with it. It's the quality of the information contained within the book that is most important to me. So far I have not been disappointed in that department.

The book covers a wide range of things such as:

* rethinking the way you write HTML for CSS;
* basic stuff about CSS and writing stylesheets (really for beginners but even intermediates could learn a thing or two in this area);
* style inheritance;
* style cascades, specificity, CSS resets and hybrid styles;
* styling elements (covers just about everything from forms/tables to text/links/navigation and floats/positioning/advanced stuff, etc - suitable for both beginners and intermediates);
* creating print stylesheets;
* improving your CSS habits which covers things like multiple stylesheets, shorthand, comments, descendant selectors, etc;
* Internet Explorer hacks and conditional comments;
* an introduction to CSS3.

There are sections in the back of the book which covers property reference, CSS in Dreamweaver 4 and other CSS resources.

It's very useful as a reference book. It's very easy to read, very easy to understand and it's well structured IMO. The author explains things in a simple way. The information contained within the book is pretty much up to date as this book was published last year. So I would recommend this for beginners and intermediate web designers who need to learn more about the best way to write CSS as well as how to write CSS.

This book deserves a big thumbs up for me. Awesome. :D
[2010-08-05]