Cascading Style Sheets - CSS for short - offer advanced functions for placing and rendering texts and graphics on Web pages. They permit you to obtain a very precise positioning of multimedia elements. This reference will serve as a useful reminder for the CSS Level 1 specification, and for the properties and values provided by CSS Level 2.

How to read this reference

Before exploring the reference, check out the coding conventions that have been used. Information about each property will appear in the following categories and in the same order:

• a description of the property;
• CSS1 values: the valid CSS1 syntax and values;
• CSS2 values: the valid CSS2 syntax and values;
• initial value;
• applied to: the HTML element to which the property may be applied.
• inherited: specifies whether or not the property can be inherited;
• notes: additional information.

Interpreting CSS values is rather tricky. So just be patient and follow the logical rules closely. Values for each attribute conform to a very strict notation so that you can see whether they are compatible, necessary or optional. Before discovering them, we would recommend that you go through the coding conventions of this reference.

Certain values are expressed through standard units. To facilitate the reading of the various topics, these units have been grouped in a specific section of the reference.

Here are the style sheet properties listed by category:

• block elements;
• background and colour;
• borders;
• fonts;
• lists;
• texts;
• visual effects;
• aural style sheets;
• generated content and automatic numbering;
• paged media;
• tables;
• user interface;



• The units.
• All properties.