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Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a new Web design feature that gives website developers and users more control over how pages are presented and displayed.


The traditional "table" mark-up used to design pages is now being replaced with CSS. So if you've not yet made the move, read on for six good reasons to switch.

The essence of CSS is that you create a central style sheet or template, defining how various page elements such as headers, colours, spacing, links, fonts and layouts appear.

This style can then be applied to hundreds of pages at once, rather than editing each one separately. And is therefore an easy way to give your site a consistent look.

The benefits
  • Save time and effort maintaining your website
    CSS allows you to separate the presentation style of documents from the content. So updates and redesigns take less time, as the HTML mark-up is much simpler.

  • Make your website more accessible
    Different users can have different style sheets. For example, visually-impaired users can have a large text alternative, or you can create styles for print, Braille and screen-readers.

  • Help future proof your website
    With CSS, you can make your site compatible with mobile phone screens and the vast, growing market for PDAs.

  • Pages take less time to load
    Because CSS code uses fewer HTML tags than tables - file sizes are smaller and that means they're faster to download - and more print-friendly.

  • Cut bandwidth costs
    Compact CSS files need less bandwidth to host your pages. So if your site gets lots of traffic, you'll make big savings.

  • Boost your search engine rankings
    Pages prepared with CSS layouts use simpler HTML code and are easier for search engine spiders to access, read and sort.
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