Cascading Style Sheets ^{2nd Ed.}

When we released Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide in 2000, we believed CSS was poised to become a major force in web authoring — and we were right. Since then, CSS has continued to mature as a standard, dozens of books have been published on the topic, and most recent browsers have at least partial support for CSS2 and excellent support for CSS1.

CSS is the W3C-approved method for adding to and enriching the visual presentation of web documents. It allows web authors to mimic the sophisticated layout and pagination of desktop publishing with clean, easy-to-maintain scripts. This second edition of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide completes the discussion of CSS2, explores CSS2.1, and introduces emerging elements of CSS3.

Eric A. Meyer, now an even more respected expert on the subject of CSS, uses his trademark wit and humor to explore properties, tags, attributes, and implmentation, as well as real-life issues, such as browser support and design guidelines. This book addresses experienced web authors and scripters, as well as novice authors who may be implementing CSS from scratch.

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition also includes a new foreword by Molly Holzschlag, a steering committee member for the Web Standards Project and one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web.

1. CSS and Documents
• The Web’s Fall from Grace
• What a Mess
• CSS to the Rescue
• Elements
• Bringing CSS and XHTML Together
2. Selectors
• Basic Rules
• Grouping
• Class and ID Selectors
• Attribute Selectors
• Using Document Structure
• Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements
3. Structure and the Cascade
• Specificity
• Inheritance
• The Cascade
4. Values and Units
• Numbers
• Percentages
• Color
• Length Units
• URLs
• CSS2 Units
5. Fonts
• Font Families
• Font Weights
• Font Size
• Styles and Variants
• Stretching and Adjusting Fonts
• The font Property
• Font Matching
6. Text Properties
• Indentation and Horizontal Alignment
• Vertical Alignment
• Word Spacing and Letter Spacing
• Text Transformation
• Text Decoration
• Text Shadows
7. Basic Visual Formatting
• Basic Boxes
• Block-Level Elements
• Inline Elements
• Altering Element Display
8. Padding, Borders, and Margins
• Basic Element Boxes
• Margins
• Borders
• Padding
9. Colors and Backgrounds
• Colors
• Foreground Colors
• Backgrounds
10. Floating and Positioning
• Floating
• Positioning
11. Table Layout
• Table Formatting
• Table Cell Borders
• Table Sizing
12. Lists and Generated Content
• Lists
• Generated Content
13. User Interface Styles
• System Fonts and Colors
• Cursors
• Outlines
14. Non-Screen Media
• Designating Medium-Specific Style Sheets
• Paged Media
• Aural Styles

1. Property Reference
2. Selector, Pseudo-Class, and Pseudo-Element Reference
3. Sample HTML 4 Style Sheet

A bit dated (from 2004, and still talks about XHTML), but contains everything you need to initially learn to be proficient in CSS2.

I enjoyed it, and I don't really enjoy CSS…