In the past I've had confidence in the quality of books published by O'Reilly, but this book was a huge disappointment. There are so many errors--both typos and grammatical errors--coupled with awkward writing, that I find it almost unreadable. Even the diagram for the box model on page 67 is messed up. How is it possible that this sloppiness could get published (again!) in a second edition? There may be some valuable information in the book, but with all the mistakes I don't trust it as a resource. Look for authors Eric Meyers, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Andy Clarke for better CSS books.

In general, this is a helpful book if you need to research a particular design solution, but it should in no way be used exclusively to learn CSS. It's helpful to have CSS and javascript experience to fully take advantage of everything this book offers.

Unfortunately, the book contains some organizational flaws. The "General" chapter, which is meant to serve as an introduction to CSS, is a brief background to concepts and tools, but it doesn't always point out that certain selectors are not supported in every browser (child selectors and pseudo-elements are the most notable). I think it'd be helpful to state straight-up that many aspects of CSS are interpreted differently in various browsers, if supported at all, and then note which browsers support each feature as the feature is introduced to the reader. To their credit, they do include a "pitfalls/warnings" icon at the end of some sections, but it'd be helpful to know about them before you continue on to work through one of their examples, only to discover later that it doesn't work in IE6. Since most people would like to design for a cross-browser experience, they might just want to skip over certain CSS features that are not widely supported, so indicating browser support up-front would be very helpful. And I wonder how valuable it is to mention something like "text-shadow" if it is only currently supported by one browser? In addition, some important concepts are buried in the book (such as the fundamental concept of inheritance and the !important rule) - they might be better placed in the "General" chapter (introduction).

Though this book does have its flaws, I have to say that it does assemble some nice formatting tricks. I have previously scoured the Web searching for many of the techniques that are all nicely packaged in one place in the "Images" chapter, so I am sure this would be a real time-saver for many, as the leg-work is already done for you. Among some commonly sought out techniques are rounded corners, dropshadows, and the lightbox effect. The "Lists" and "Navigation" chapters are also pretty useful. The "recipes" this book includes are not only a means to accomplish a particular goal, but the solutions are creatively achieved so that you start thinking about using CSS in less out-of-the-box ways. And kudos to them for mentioning accessibility/usability in the "Typography" chapter - those concepts often fall to the wayside in comparison to glitzier topics.

The CSS Cookbook is written for those starting out with CSS and advanced users. It is not written as a tutorial in order to learn CSS but anyone with a basic grip on CSS will find the book a valuable companion. The clear explanations of many of the pitfalls we come across when writing CSS are simply stated in an easy to look up format.
Even though you may not want to read the book front to cover I think its a great experience to just pick your chapters by what interests you most and to work through a complete chapter following along and rewriting the code as indicated in order to get a good feel of what problems are solved so that if along the way you run in to a problem you find it back without mach ado. You might learn things you never knew where that simple ore useful. For those who are transitioning from table based layouts to CSS it might not be to book to get familiar with CSS because it is a technical book, a little to dry for just getting into using CSS. Once you have gone through the initial learning curve using books like Head First: HTML and CSS from O'Reilly or Eric Meyers on CSS from New Riders you will be ready to use the book as it is intended: A constant companion within reach whenever the going gets tough,
Chapter 9 on page layout for example clearly explains what took me a long time to understand when starting out trying to use floats for layout. A common problem like columns floated to the left being shorter then the second column located on the right and the resulting overflow of this right column below the left -floated column, I almost forgot that that took me hours to solve when starting out with CSS. In "CSS Cookbook" these behaviors/problems are explained almost in order of appearance as we are working to accomplice more complicated layouts using relative or absolute positioning. There are many resources out on the web but wadding through them is time consuming and being able to find your solutions in a one or two page example including code and images are a big time saver. After each problem there is almost always a "See Also" referral to either another recipe in the book or a link to a more detailed explanation online directing you not only to reliable CSS resources but also to the direct location of the particular problem at hand within these CSS online community resources.
In the same chapter on layout Christopher Schmitt takes us trough as step-by-step tutorial on Alex Robinson's influential article on creating the "any order Columns" published at postitioniseverything.com. A great exercise in understanding floats and how to be creative with code.
In chapter 4 on page elements you will find a great example on some creative ways to add java in your pages and I really appreciate the precise instructions here since that is still kind of new to me. The results are truly beautiful, and would inspire any visual designer and can even be applied to background images placed from a style sheet as you can see applied at [...] a small testing / playground of mine.

A whole chapter is dedicated to forms, another to print.
You will find a clear explanation of how to run multiple versions of i.e. and how to install them. I always new where to find them, just could not get them to work until now! I wish the same simple explanation were given on how to implement Shaun Inmans "clearing a float" in a absolute positioned design since it still is not working for me. (patience, patience...)

The books focus is on solving CSS problems so don't expect all files/example that accompany the book to be validating. I find that a bit of a draw back since the document type used is XHTML Strict in most example files. I think the book as well as the accompanying files may need someone to go through them one more time with a fine comb to correct some of the minor coding errors.
It's really not to be picking but the book is meant for those familiar with code looking to switch over to CSS and for those more advanced. Using a XTML strict Doc declaration in most documents, would it not be neater if the document where written and validated as such? Text without a paragraph surrounding it or a

inside a paragraph, missing closing tacks, make it hard for those who are starting out to find confidence when the CSS is somehow not working. Is it I, is it the book? Honestly, when I get stuck I like to know it's something I did wrong and not the book I am learning from. I did however not find any CSS errors in any of the samples I worked trough!

I never read the first edition of the CSS Cookbook but with the release of IE 7 the book has been updated.
In chapter 3 on images it is stated that at press time IE 5x and 6 do not support a fixed background image in a header to receive a particular effect. I tested in IE 7 and its now is now behaving as it should, so the book I think was released before IE `s 7 official release. Would it have been wiser to wait for this? I think there would have been a more structured outline then of what is still missing and a clearer picture of what to expect in the future working with multiple browsers and demands.

In a ocean of resources in print and online, in the midst of so many tutorials and inspirational articles written on CSS we need a book that works like a Swiss Army Knife to help us solve the problems and issues we come across when we are working on a project and don't have the time to wade trough some of the indeed fascinating and very valuable recourses we can find online. We need a direct solution...We need to know that when we do get stuck or want to push the boundaries that there is a resource that is not lost in a endless list of valuable bookmarks, however well organized, one we can access immediately. Therefore it can be a valuable reason to work through the chapters of interest so that when time is of the essence we know where to go.
Especially when working on commercial project and when we are not at liberty to suggest that, well maybe IE users will not get the full experience of some more advanced and also very popular browsers, but...

In short it is imported to know what works or not and
to have some workarounds or at least to hide from those browsers who don't support what you are doing.
Me personally, I am passionate in my belief and the reasoning behind it, to not letting a product of lesser quality hold down a development....
And especially because of this is it so important to have the tools at hand to know when to support or bypass older browsers to know what works and what not etc.

I almost want to keep the book a secret just because of the fantastic light box example in chapter 4.6. What a beauty. The book really makes you want to explore and experiment with some more java code added in to your designs. A true gem released a bit to hasty. I don't want a refund and you cannot borrow my copy!

There are just too many "bugs" (typos, coding errors, misplaced figures, etc.) in this book to recommend it. I could forgive the many grammatical errors (though there's really no excuse for them), but when you're supposed to be passing along coding solutions and there are this many errors in the very code you're recommending, it's just unacceptable. I spent way too much time trying to unravel the coding errors to make this book really useful.

I also agree with the reviewer who said he couldn't figure out who the book was for (e.g., beginner, advanced programmer, etc.). I think the problem lies largely in the way the book was organized (or rather, wasn't organized). They need to take this book back to the workshop, clean up the errors, re-arrange the content and then, perhaps, they will have something worthy of publishing.

There are just too many "bugs" (typos, coding errors, misplaced figures, etc.) in this book to recommend it. I could forgive the many grammatical errors (though there's really no excuse for them), but when you're supposed to be passing along coding solutions and there are this many errors in the very code you're recommending, it's just unacceptable. I spent way too much time trying to unravel the coding errors to make this book really useful.

I also agree with the reviewer who said he couldn't figure out who the book was for (e.g., beginner, advanced programmer, etc.). I think the problem lies largely in the way the book was organized (or rather, wasn't organized). They need to take this book back to the workshop, clean up the errors, re-arrange the content and then, perhaps, they will have something worthy of publishing.

There is some excellent information here. The sections on forms and the CSS calendar were helpful for me. The nested list to breadcrumb solution is lovely, but this book was written too often for best case (or browser) scenarios, not always the world as it is.

Floats are covered for CSS layout but there is no mention of some common Internet Explorer bugs that make their use tricky, including common bugs like the expanding box and guillotine bugs. Holly Hack anybody? How about the problem with setting percent font sizes in the body selector without defining them first in html. Granted IE 7 fixes most of the shortcomings of older versions of the browser but to pretend they don't exist for a measurable percentage of the browsing population is negligent.

Where CSS works as it should, the solutions are fine. Where it doesn't there is too little discussion of the real everyday lack of support in various browsers. If discrete "solutions" are given, the problems associated with each "solution" should be mentioned in the "solution:, not left to a later section that is not cross-referenced. There is a token section at the end of the book on hack support but it is superficial. Even where browser support is mention, it is usually at the end of the solution, where we see it, if at all, after wasting time working through the code. A simple, "This works in xyz browsers at the beginning of each "solution" would have been a great improvement. As they are, some "solutions" only solve problems in a minority percentage of browsers.

There are simply too many good and complete CSS books like Meyer's CSS: The Definitive Guide and CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll that give us better real world coverage of CSS usage. For beginners there is Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide by Charles Wyke-Smith. For the experienced there is the stunning new Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke and Molly Holzschlag. I ordered CSS Cookbook in a moment of book craving and am not thrilled by it.

I'm torn on sending it back. It is far from the best general reference, but does have some good content. If I wasn't experienced enough to recognize where it offers less than complete information, it could cause me head scratching with the layout solutions.

Where was Dan Cederholm for this revision?

A very good book, targeted to the web developer, who knows his bit of CSS, and wants to get his CSS development to a higher level. Most of the hacks presented give solutions to everyday problems, things you always wanted to integrate to your websites, but could not exactly fathom how, just by looking at the source of a website which already includes them. Most can allready be found as tutorials in the a list appart website [...]but it is allways nice to have the really good ones in print.

A very good book, targeted to the web developer, who knows his bit of CSS, and wants to get his CSS development to a higher level. Most of the hacks presented give solutions to everyday problems, things you always wanted to integrate to your websites, but could not exactly fathom how, just by looking at the source of a website which already includes them. Most can allready be found as tutorials in the a list appart website [...]but it is allways nice to have the really good ones in print.

This is a review of the second edition of the book.

I am an experienced web programmer who was looking to get more acquainted with the layout and design aspects of working with HTML. Designers I've worked with have always allowed me to be abstracted from that side somewhat, but I wanted to get my hands dirty.

I feel this book presented a lot of useful information, but it was very frustrating to get through due to all the mistakes in the code, typos, and missing graphics. Since it's an O'Reilly book, I expected this to be the finest book available for CSS. Unfortunately, it's far from it. It's painful to get through certain sections, notably chapter 7, which has graphics from other chapters randomly thrown into it. The mistakes start right on page 3 and don't stop until the end. Clearly, this was a book they hurried to get out. Where were the proof-readers?

I cannot recommend this book unless you are willing to put up with lots of glaring errors. The kicker is that the errata page for this book on the O'Reilly website has nothing listed.

This is a review of the second edition of the book.

I am an experienced web programmer who was looking to get more acquainted with the layout and design aspects of working with HTML. Designers I've worked with have always allowed me to be abstracted from that side somewhat, but I wanted to get my hands dirty.

I feel this book presented a lot of useful information, but it was very frustrating to get through due to all the mistakes in the code, typos, and missing graphics. Since it's an O'Reilly book, I expected this to be the finest book available for CSS. Unfortunately, it's far from it. It's painful to get through certain sections, notably chapter 7, which has graphics from other chapters randomly thrown into it. The mistakes start right on page 3 and don't stop until the end. Clearly, this was a book they hurried to get out. Where were the proof-readers?

I cannot recommend this book unless you are willing to put up with lots of glaring errors. The kicker is that the errata page for this book on the O'Reilly website has nothing listed.

First things first. You should have some experience with Cascading Style Sheets before diving into this book. It will not teach you CSS, but you will learn some really nifty shortcuts and tricks using CSS. The book assumes its readers "possess some web design or development experience either as a hobbyist, student, or professional." Take the assumption seriously. But even if you're an expert at CSS, don't overlook the book. It should make a handy resource, especially in terms of interoperability.

For those of you who are weak or rusty with CSS, the first chapter provides a good refresher. Go lightly through it, however, since there are some errata which can leave you scratching your head. Most of the errata in the rest of the book is obvious and doesn't detract from the content, although the typos can be a bit annoying.

The book is structured in a problem-solution format, categorized by type. For instance, "Creating a Hanging Indent," a handy technique to know, is in the Web Typography section (Chapter 2). It begins with a statement of the problem, "You want to create a hanging indent," offers a solution (in this case, pretty brief), then goes into a lengthy discussion of the problems, workarounds and related issues (such as, in this case, paired hanging indents). The "problems" range from fairly simple and obvious to complex, using javascript. I should probably note that there is very little explanation of the javascript when it is included in solutions or discussions. The assumption is that you already have some knowledge about it. I should probably also note that when javascript is included, there are instructions on where to obtain the needed code, and how to include it.

Many of the solutions also include using images. Again, there is the assumption you know how to create or modify the image needed. Like the solutions using javascript, the instructions typically tell you where to get the needed image. But some, like the "Rounding Corners" techniques, tell you to create a rounded corners design, then tell you how to modify it for the solution.

On the issue of cross-browser compatibility, there is a very handy section (Chapter 11) on Hacks, Workarounds, and Troubleshooting, and a section in the index with tables showing the implementation of CSS elements in different platforms and browsers (also available from O'Reilly Media as a pdf file). But compatibility issues, if there are any, are also dealt with in each problem-solution set. IE 7 is also included in the discussions.

On the whole, except for the typos and errata (which, unfortunately, were not listed on O'Reilly's site at the time of this writing), this is a good, solid reference book. I like the discussion part of the solutions, which not only explain the how and why, but often give alternatives and discuss issues which impact implementing the solution (such as validation, and compatibility). While not a book to start out with, it is definitely a book to expand your knowledge and skills.

As a web designer who finally has become comfortable with CSS, I love the second edition of this book. Filled with examples of how to get around tricky browser issues, as well as helping to make a site look better, this book is an excellent reference. Among the topics this book gives examples for are image placement (and tricks you can do to combine text and images), page elements, various things you can do to make your page lists look spiffier, links and navigation on a site, forms, tables, page layouts, even creating printer-friendly pages. One if the sites I maintain contains frames (which are now considered "not cool") and I was looking for a way to eliminate them. I saw a couple of ideas here that I'm looking forward to trying to see if they indeed make my site look better without those durned frames.

I mentioned "browser issues" in the previous paragraph. One of the book's last chapter is devoted to that topic with workarounds for problems encountered with various versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer, along with troubleshooting CSS problems. As with most O'Reilly books, there's also a wealth of resources in the book's back matter, including web sites for further CSS related information along with information about CSS properties.

I'm currently helping two other people in the redesign of an existing site and I know this book will help both of us get that project done more quickly. Anyone who designs web sites and uses a lot or even a moderate amount of CSS will benefit from this book.

How many times have you visited a website and thought to yourself, "Gee, that looks cool. I wonder how they do that?" Well, chances are this book can answer that question. The examples and solutions are pretty clear, which is good. But I have to agree with other reviewers' comments about the lack of color and typos. Color would definitely help, and a mistake in a CSS solution is a whole different ball game from one in a programming language example. A program error is usually easy to fix as it will oftentimes be flagged by the compiler. A CSS error, on the other hand, can be much trickier to track down. (I don't know how many typos this book contains. I'm only using it to find solutions to particular problems, so there's still a fair amount I haven't tried.)
Note that this book doesn't teach you CSS, nor does it profess to. If you're looking to learn about CSS there are better books out there, for example, O'Reilly's "Head First HTML & XHTML with CSS" (which is in color). This book serves a "I know what I want to do - how do I do it" purpose, and it does that well.

The book is useful, but I had to keep putting it down out of frustration. Many of the examples and images don't match up with the text, it's loaded with typos, and chapter 7 constantly references itself as chapter 6. That's as far as I've gotten so far, because I *really* have to keep putting this book down out of frustration. Let me be clear, I'm not super-picky about typos and what not, but this book is ridiculous. A few hours of proof-reading is all that would have been needed. I'm honestly amazed it was released like this. Somebody needs to get fired over this. It's that bad. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

As far as how useful the book is, you can pick it up and leaf through to find a solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve. But if the solution you find is affected by one of the hundred or so typos and mistakes, you might be setting yourself up for a wild goose chase trying to figure out why your code doesn't work like it does in the book. Ask me how I know..

Also, note that most of the positive reviews here refer to the 1st edition.

I found this book to be helpful in learning some of the basics of CSS. Perhaps, like you, I googled my way around online trying to find solutions to problems that I was encountering. I liked that this book had many of the solutions already written out in the book that I was having problems with. I have been familiar with HTML, but I was late in adding CSS to my websites. I know that there are large benefits with using CSS, and it makes your life eaiser, but I found learning CSS from scratch to be somewhat daunting. From the novice perspective I found this book to be exactly what I needed. There are larger books out there, but I really needed just the basics.

This isn't a large book, I found it to be concise, and helpful in understanding CSS. I haven't always found the largest book to be the most helpful. I liked that I could read this book, understand its explanations and then immediately impliment the code. If you are looking for the end all be all in books, this may not be the book you are looking for. If you are somewhat new to CSS, I think that this book will be helpful in understanding CSS.

I highly recommend this book. I am not a specialist in web design, but did have a certification in HTML/XHTML before reading it, so I had some background. Major topics are Web Typography, Page Elements, Links and Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Print-Friendly functions, Hacks/Workarounds and miscellaneous designing issues.

Each chapter is divided into subsections, and they are patterned as follows:

- Statement of the "Problem" (as the book puts it), or what it is that you want to do.
- "Solution": first gives the HTML (if relevant), and then the CSS for modifying the HTML to get what you want.
- "Discussion": explains in plain English what you just saw in the "Solution" section.
- "See also": suggests other resources.

Some of the examples require some knowledge of JavaScript, and in those cases I simply had to note that fact and move on. Most of what is illustrated in the book assumes only knowledge of HTML.

I've recently had the pleasure of reading CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt, published by O'Reilly (the people who put animal pictures on their tech books - seems silly, but now you know exactly who I mean, don't you?). While I do not recommend it as a beginner's guide to CSS, I recommend it for the bookshelf of current CSS developers, or perhaps if you have a basic knowledge of CSS (maybe you use it control fonts and colors, and that's about it) and would like to implement even more of your design with CSS.

The book is meant to be a reference book, but I read it straight through for the purposes of a review. It's one of the thinner reference books you can buy - weighing in at a little over 250 pages - but it is packed; no long-winded opining, no lengthy sidebars, just a raw: problem - solution - explanation - see also format. This format makes it very easy to look up the specific CSS issue you need insight on and get it.

The book is divided into various categories of CSS, beginning with typography and other elements, moving along to links, lists, forms, tables, all the way up to a page layout section (if you've never used CSS to lay out an entire page, this section alone is worth the cost of the book), then addressing print CSS, browser hacks and workarounds, and then finishing with a brief section of raising various design possibilities that CSS makes possible.

Each section begins with beginner-level problems, such as how to justify text. The section then gets into mid-level problems, such as CSS rollovers and various uses of background images. Finally, each category will tackle big-boy problems, like how to make a CSS-based splash screen that converts to main content, creating variable-length folder tabbed menu items, and centering fixed-width items in a variable-width area. I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of CSS - I do almost all my pages in Strict XHTML and use CSS for my layout, formatting, the works, and I still learned plenty from this book. If nothing else, it will give you other ideas on how to solve common problems.

One unexpected value of this book were all the hacks and tricks. As many developers know that peruse various web development blogs, websites, and mailing lists - there are scads of CSS tips, tricks, hacks, and workarounds posted out there, but finding the one you need when you need it can be a challenge. This book contains all the main ones, dealing with Fahrner Image Replacement and its alternatives, CSS "Sliding Doors," various box-model hacks to deal with Internet Explorer, Netscape 4 hacks and reminders, etc. It's like someone took all the standard "fixes" for common CSS issues from all the blogs, websites, and mailing lists and put them in this book. For me, that was worth the price of admission.

I'm not always this laudatory about all tech books. In fact, I'm reading a CSS book right now that has loads of problems. The CSS Cookbook, however, is one I would recommend without reservation or a single "yeah, but..." to my colleagues in web development or students in the field.

For your money, there's lots better books. Anything by Eric Meyer (in particular the Eric Meyer on CSS books from New Riders) is going to be more helpful. I can't believe O'Reilly would put out such a thin volume and call it a Cookbook! It felt like kind of a waste of my money. I would have liked to see twice as many examples, things like images are barely even covered at all.

The CSS Cookbook is a nice reference for seeing CSS in action. This book focuses on examples grouped by Typography, Page Elements, Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Printing layout, CSS workarounds, and design tips.

Christopher Schmitt writes in a clear, concise manner. Tips and information are presented in a "no nonsense" way, getting straight to the point. I just wish there were more points made. For a 250 page book, this is a nice manual of solutions to common problems that CSS can solve, but I feel like more could have been added to bring the page count somewhere around 350-400. One of the main things that CSS can do is address the need for "tableless" web pages and while Mr. Schmitt discusses this topic in his chapter relating to page layout, I feel more examples should have been provided for a book which calls itself a "cookbook".

Having said that, the calendar example in Chapter 6 is worth the price of admission alone, and the samples provided relating to font typography are well written. The thing I like about Oreilly's "Cookbook" series is the fact that these books get right to the point. Too many times authors spice up their books with humor-filled writing and for a reference guide you just want to be able to open up a book and find relevant examples. The author does a nice job of providing an excellent companion to "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" and it would benefit any CSS developer to have a copy of "CSS Cookbook" next to their computer.

**** RECOMMENDED

After reading the other reviews about this book, I thought that it'd be a handy reference guide to add to my collection. I'm an experienced web developer and already know how style sheets work and how to use them - I just wanted a book where I could quickly look up specific syntax, etc.

This book definitely doesn't work for that - the index is sorely lacking and the information isn't well-organized at all. So, since a lot of the other reviewers wrote that this book isn't for beginners (I agree) and, since I'm an experienced developer and it's not working for me, I'm not sure who would find this book useful. Especially when there are so many other CSS books to choose from.....

Normally O'Reilly books are really good, so I'm a little bit surprised that they published this book without having an editor clean it up and organize it. In any case, I would not recommend this book, period. I'm glad that my employer paid for it and not me. ;-)

Finally! A CSS book with real-world examples that allows the user to find what they are looking for and put it to work. I don't want to read pages and pages about the history of CSS, I just want to find the code I need and be done. I carry this book with me everyday. A truly valuable resource, highly recommended.

If you do any programming at all you soon learn of the immense value of programming cookbooks. This particular one came at a good time for me as I was trying to figure out how to create a particular effect for a web page and knew that it could be done with a cascading style sheet. A quick turn to the correct page and the code was right there along with an explanation of how it works. Twenty minutes later it was completely coded and working correctly.

The author lists many common problems and for each of them provides a problem definition, a solution, and a discussion. For many of the problems the author also includes a "See Also" section that points you to further reading. With so many problems and solutions it is important to organize them in a way so they can be located quickly. To achieve this goal the book is divided into ten distinct sections. These sections are: Web Typography, Page Elements, Links and Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Print, Hacks and Workarounds, and Designing with CSS. A top quality cookbook title from O'Reilly Media, CSS Cookbook is a highly recommended read for anyone working with web pages and cascading style sheets.

If you're not familiar with O'Reilly's cookbook series (...), they're books with a basic formula: Problem, Solution, and Discussion sections for every 'recipe.' The link takes you to an image showing how the format looks. Each recipe is a script, program, command, or piece of code for implementing within a large part of a whole.

In CSS Cookbook, get recipes for using CSS to create pull quotes, to add a background image, to build various types of layouts, and to manage forms. It is not about building a Web site from scratch, but getting bite-sized markup for implementing pieces of the site.

This book is for those who know HTML and have a basic understanding of CSS. Like any food cookbook, the recipes are there when you're ready for them. It's not for reading from cover to cover. When you get stuck on a problem or want to know how to create a printer-friendly page, refer to the recipe.

The main issue with the book is its use of tables in some of the recipes. With the growing number of Web sites moving towards Web standards compliance, tables are finally going away as a layout tool. Their only purpose is for organizing data.

Don't expect recipes on fly-out or drop down menus. This is not a bad thing as CSS is not the ideal way to create such menus as there are many problems with implementing them. So it is understandable why they were not included. If you want to learn how to do these menus, there are many resources on the Internet showing how.

The book could use more recipes as others in the Cookbook series have 400, 500, and even 700 pages. This one is just 270 pages.

As in his other books, Schmitt does an excellent job of explaining each problem and solution with his minimal jargon and easy writing style. The table of contents (...) provides the list of the types of problems covered in this book. If these are things you wish to implement, then you'll be happy with the purchase.

I am becoming a serious fan of the Cookbooks from O'Reilly. They are well-organized, have lots of great tips and recipes, and don't get bogged down in detail, but still give enough insight to be useful when expanding the ideas.

The CSS Cookbook from Christopher Schmitt is no exception. It is aimed at developers who know a bit about CSS, but need some reference to solve specific problems, and who wish to view alternate methods to common situations. While this book will not teach you CSS, it is a great desk reference to jog your memory, or reveal some new trick.

Overall, the CSS Cookbook starts with some basic ideas about typography on the web, something that every designer should be aware of, if not devoted to. It then hits all the usual suspects, including page elements, links and navigation, tables, etc (all listed on the back cover). They way this book is broken down may take a little getting used to, since the focus is more on individual approaches to design ideas, rather than a master list of common complete page layouts. However, the last 3rd of the book gives some great overall information about complete designs, compatibility considerations, and some bit of theory about using CSS effectively.

Language in this book is neutral, but conversational. It may not have you curled up by a fire on a chilly evening, but it gets the points across very well. Schmitt seems to hit a nice stride with giving you useful information without making it dry or giving in to bad jokes and punch-in-the-arm commentary. Not that these last things are necessarily bad, they just aren't in Schmitt's book. That helps make it a great tool to keep close by.

Something that's near and dear to my heart is replacing tables with appropriate CSS-Positioning elements. Schmitt does a good job balancing the argument about when to use tables versus divs. While I prefer to use tables for banging my shin against, they are still quite widely used, and merit consideration in certain circumstances. One highlight is his elegant use of styled tables to build a nice-looking calendar. This is something many people will find very useful.

Other highlights include a great section on column layouts. Not only are the recipes given, but time is also allowed for consideration of challenges with each style, and why some workarounds may be necessary. Another favourite is making print-friendly pages, including forms. Resumes, help files, and reference material could all benefit from such a treatment when presented online.

I think a pretty good middle range of designers would greatly benefit from the CSS Cookbook, and some advanced people who just need a new idea or refresher now and then. Certainly, one could find more technical or theoretical books on CSS, such as in the Definitive Guide series from O'Reilly, or the W3C-endorsed 'Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web' by Lie and Bos. But for practicality, quick solutions, and some great ideas, the CSS Cookbook is a great tool for any designer's collection.

I'd say run down to your local bookstore, or check out some of the sample text on O'Reilly's site and consider putting this one on your shelf.

Of the various recipe-style books about CSS that have appeared in recent times, this one is probably the best. It covers a variety of realistic requirements, from "web typography" (large first letters, highlighted first lines, fancy pull quotes etc) to several different kinds of menus and multi-column page layouts. Most of the recipes are short but they are also largely self-contained, making them very quick and easy to use. This format makes me prefer Schmitt's effort to some comparable works, such as Eric Meyer's two colorful volumes, Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS.

That said, however, potential buyers of the book should be warned that it has some glaring omissions. While Explorer-like collapsible menus and tab-style horizontal menus are explained, there is no recipe for drop-down or "fly-out" menus. The chapters on table styling and print stylesheets are rather thin, and the chapter on Hacks and Workarounds makes no mention of Internet Explorer's conditional comments, which, being deliberately-designed browser features, seem like more durable tools than the parsing bugs on which most hacks are based.

These omissions might be understandable if space was at a premium, but at 252 pages, the book is short compared with most other titles from O'Reilly's cookbook series. And one wonders why, if useful things had to be left out, the author could still find room for a Javascript-based technique for producing that most annoying of web phenomena, blinking text.

In the end, I would still recommend the book for people who find that they have to use CSS occasionally, rather than on a daily basis. But the buyer should still be prepared to spend time trawling the web in search of solutions to many problems.

I think I'd generally agree with the previous positive reviews. You should already be familiar with CSS, JavaScript and HTML - this is not a CSS starter book. It's more geared toward start to finish answers for common CSS questions, most of which I found I could easily adapt to my level of understanding. There is an in-depth description about how to create a very nice looking calendar with CSS (using HTML tables) which I liked a lot. However, for me personally, I will probably stick with O'Reilly's CSS: The Definitive Guide.

I'm sure it was done for monetary reasons, but it would have been nice if the figures were in color - or at least the figures supporting the elements that deal with color. It was tough to distinguish between shades of grey or follow the arrows with the words "blue" or "green" on one end pointing to an area. I know, I know, picky picky. :) So - while I'm being picky... :) The foreward mentions "...compiling hundreds of CSS recipes into this single book" - but by my count, there are only 89 Problem/Solution/Discussion sections (aka recipes). I would like to have seen "hundreds of CSS recipes", which would have provided greater variety to the solutions.

This book can save you a lot of pain in developing CSS on multiple browsers. There is a lot of detail in the recipes on where the browser rendering quirks are and how to create CSS that works on all browsers.

That being said, this is not a book for CSS or HTML beginners. You need to understand the basic mechanics of the syntax and preferably have some experience with CSS before you pick this book up. This is a book for those that have worked with CSS and been stung either by browser incompatibilities or the inability to find the right CSS syntax for tricky jobs. Non-Javascript menus, the box model hack, three column CSS layouts, hanging list indents, it's all in here.

The great part about the cookbook series is that it not only shows you how to fix the problem in front of you, it also has enough discussion to get you around related issues and maybe teach you a thing or to.

I highly recommend this book to any serious CSS user.

Beware, the author warns. This is not a book to learn CSS from scratch. Its premise is that you already have a basic understanding of CSS and of the rudiments of JavaScript. But given that, Schmitt offers a handy grab bag of time saving hacks, that others have found useful when struggling with CSS.

Some of the problems and solutions do seem really basic. Like the very first one, about setting the typeface of some text in a page. You'd expect any book teaching CSS to cover this, or, if not, that a user who read that book could quickly find this solution. A few other problems are like this.

But the majority of problems presented here are not so trivial. That, combined with a succinct set of one liners that describe each problem in the contents, should give the book some appeal to you.

I received another package from O'Reilly (the UPS man really dislikes me!), and one of the books was the CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt. This will be another book that I will jealously guard on my bookshelf at work...

Chapter breakout: Web Typography; Page Elements; Links and Navigation; Lists; Forms; Tables; Page Layouts; Print; Hacks and Workarounds; Designing with CSS; Resources; Index

Generally speaking, I like the O'Reilly Cookbook series. A problem is presented, a solution is given, and an explanation of that solution takes place. For those of us who like seeing working code in order to adapt to our own solutions, this is great stuff. In the CSS Cookbook, this goes one better. Since CSS is a visual design technology, the author also includes screen prints on all the "recipes". So you can scan through the book, see a cool effect, and stop to read the article to figure out how to do it. He covers the gamut of cool and practical stuff, so everyone should find something here.

For me, I already found something I need. The recipes on menuing have a couple techniques that I didn't know how to do. Since I have a project due at work that needs those features, I'll be trying these out within the next day. That's always a good sign of an excellent book... If I immediately find a use for the information, it's a real keeper.

If you're past the "what is CSS" phase and need to work with it on a regular basis, I'd recommend this book both for instruction and inspiration. Very good stuff here...

O'Reilly's other books on CSS tend to be more for reference and learning, but this book, by Christopher Schmitt, contains good, practical advice for putting CSS to use. And as a bonus, this book covers the brand-new CSS 2.1 conventions. Like other "Cookbook" tech books, there are plenty of real-world cases and blocks of code that designers and developers can use or adapt in their own situations. There are plenty of "Hello World" examples that will be useful to those new to CSS, but there is some advanced material, too, for those at intermediate levels looking to spread their wings a bit. This volume bookends quite nicely with the "Eric Meyer on CSS" books.