Style Groups¶

Style sheets can be made up of dozens of style settings that can be applied to page elements. There is no official categorization system for these style settings, but they can reasonably be broken down into the following general groups (modeled after those used by the popular CSS program CSSEdit, which we highly recommend for those doing development on Mac OS X):

• Fonts & Colors - Controls the font family, size, color, line height, italics, etc.
• Text - These styles set the alignment, direction, and capitalization of text.
• Backgrounds - Used to control the color and image of an element's background.
• Dimensions - Set width, height, margins, and padding.
• Position & Page Flow - Controls the positioning of an element on a page.
• Borders - You can change the style, color, type, and thickness of borders around an element.
• Bullets & Other - Change the color, type, and position of all bullet lists.

There are some useful styles that don't fit neatly into any of these groups, but this will give you plenty to start your CSS career. This courseware does not seek to give you the most exhaustive style directory ever; instead, we hope to introduce you to those most commonly-used styles and get you comfortable with their use.