What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is defined by the W3C as is 'a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents'.

In its most basic use, the W3C definition is correct. However, CSS has gone so much further than simply adding styles colours and spacing to a website.

Why CSS is more than a replacement to font tags?

For some time now, the best web developers have been designing HTML and XHTML without the use of traditional table tags which can be found on literally millions of websites. The table tag should be primarily used for displaying tabulated data, however, they are also very useful indeed for designing websites where pixel perfect positioning is required, plus web developers are generally very happy and comfortable working with tables.

CSS however, enables web devlopers to move away from 'table' driven designs, and instead allow the HTML to define the data/content, and CSS can define the style. By designing your site to rely entirely on CSS, you are not only ensuring that file sizes and download times stay small, but at the same time, an entire style overhaul becomes far more simple.

For a perfect visual example of what's being described above, visit the CSS Zen Garden this site is a great example of removing style from content. Graphic designers with excellent CSS knowledge have submitted their alternative designs to the site, but every alternative design uses the same basic html page.

So What can CSS do for me?

Give the benefits of CSS, it's obvious that stylesheets should, and are, being widely accepted. The question is, does your website provider use CSS for style control, or are they still plodding along with a WYSIWYG web building GUI?

At MCD, all website are built using CSS as far as is possible given the specification/brief of the site