The book is okay. Its not as good as some others, but its not poorly done. The section on multiple column layouts was probably the best. Its not going to be the only book you buy on the subject or the one you go to first, but its not terrible to have for an occasional reference. Some of the constructs put forth in the book have since been replaced by the css wizards over at alistapart, so some of the techniques are a little dated & overly complex.

The book is okay. Its not as good as some others, but its not poorly done. The section on multiple column layouts was probably the best. Its not going to be the only book you buy on the subject or the one you go to first, but its not terrible to have for an occasional reference. Some of the constructs put forth in the book have since been replaced by the css wizards over at alistapart, so some of the techniques are a little dated & overly complex.

I found this book to be very confusing from the beginning. I stopped reading it and am returning it tomarow. They dont get specific with thier examples. Bad Book!

The whole point about CSS is to make html that is readable and this book completely misses it. Most of the larger examples use indentation rules that make the text completely unreadable. There are much better books around on CSS.

The author wrote O'Reilly's CSS Cookbook, which is a pretty good book. However, Designing CSS Web Pages is only potentially a pretty-good book. It needs serious technical AND simple gramatical editing. Some of the sentences aren't sentences. Some of the illustrations don't match the concept they're meant to illustrate. And, worst of all, the author often omits to tell you just why in heck he's just added something to the code. That's unforgivable. That alone defeats the point of reading the book. So why three stars? Because not everything's a mess, and what isn't is sometimes enlightening and useful. I can't help thinking that if this were an O'Reilly book it would never have gotten out the door with so many problems.

The author wrote O'Reilly's CSS Cookbook, which is a pretty good book. However, Designing CSS Web Pages is only potentially a pretty-good book. It needs serious technical AND simple gramatical editing. Some of the sentences aren't sentences. Some of the illustrations don't match the concept they're meant to illustrate. And, worst of all, the author often omits to tell you just why in heck he's just added something to the code. That's unforgivable. That alone defeats the point of reading the book. So why three stars? Because not everything's a mess, and what isn't is sometimes enlightening and useful. I can't help thinking that if this were an O'Reilly book it would never have gotten out the door with so many problems.

The companion website for this book no longer exists! Major turnoff for me. I'm returning the book tomorrow.

I've just begun the book and have already found numerous errors or problems that a competent editor would have caught and corrected. Schmitt does NOT write very well and needs help with his prose.

Also note that the related website with examples from the book no longer exists.

I am sure the author is an excellent designer, but he has no business writing. His lecture-like tone reprimands us in the first section to think about our audience, something he forgot to do in his writing.
I would have expected New Riders, the publishers, to have someone read this book who was actually trying to learn something from it. It can't be done. I am a reasonably computer literate person, setting out to design my third business oriented web site, and hoping to learn how to use CSS to make it all work better. Halfway through this tome I have learned nothing.
Avoid it if you want to learn CSS.

Excellent overview of CSS. That said, the appendix of CSS delimiters is too brief in its description of each one.
What was cool about the book is that it immediately got me coding, designing a CSS update to my website. What was uncool was that as soon as I started to branch out and explore new coding ideas, I found it very difficult to find out where I was going wrong when problems occurred. So now I'm shopping for more books!
Again, though, an excellent overview and a very good stimulus for coding on your own.

It is apparent that Schmitt has a lot to say and to offer however he does not address the topics completely before he has turned his attention to something else; and unfortunately it is, at times, to a none related subject. The book reads like the story of a person who can't wait to get to the next part of the story so he abandons the part he is telling for the next, and does it repeatedly.

I read this book twice and I'm still wondering 'just what did I get out of it'. I felt the second time as I did the first, like I missed something. Yet I know I didn't. It's just that the content of this book is not well presented. The topics are not addressed completely, that if you did not already have some understanding of CSS you would not get a good one here. If fact I think you would be confused.

In chapter five the author spends almost half the chapter presenting java script apparently without regard as to whether the reader is even familiar with this programing language. The chapter is a waste if you don't know javascript (I don't).

Chapter seven focuses on topics (Utilizing PNG and SVG with CSS) both of which has next to no support is CSS. Couldn't this wait for a later book at a time when the technology is supported? It is a lame rational to ask anyone to remember this technology (most likely for years) till the time it becomes usable.

Part IV (chapters 8-10) while giving examples of what is possible in web design for business, independent publishing and 'underground styles' (what ever that is) the presentations makes no sense - 1. If your intentions are to learn CSS and 2. When neither design example is the law, the rule, standard or effectively makes a point. They're examples with little relevance.

This book at best is a 'survey of CSS' in regards to what it is and what is possible. If the books title and or promo information suggested such it would be easier to be with this book.

It does have a few tidbits to glean from. However it is diapointing on the whole.

This shold have been a larger book with topics completely addressed. It comes through that the author knows the subject, it's just not well addressed here.

I would like to see another book with better and fuller presentation from Schmitt on the subject of 'usable' (i.e. supported) CSS, and properly titled. In short, take this one back and complete it. It would be worth it.

Poorly conceived and written book

I purchased several CSS books in a flurry of book buying when I first started to learn CSS two months ago. "Designing CSS Web Pages" by Christopher Schmitt was, by far, the worst of them.

Perhaps the worst feature of the book was is uneconomical use of space. As other reviewers point out, there are several places where entire HTML scripts are reproduced, in standard-sized fonts, using a single-column layout. Couldn't the author have reproduced only the relevant snippets of code, or at least used a smaller font or 3-colum layout? Much of this code provided is irrelevant to the example, and the blank space around the code, in sum, probably adds 10 pages to the books length. This waste of space frustrated me and makes the book difficult to navigate.

Further, Schmitt wastes space by including several printed interviews with members of the CSS community. These interviews don't bear directly on the examples, and give the book a rather magazine-like feel. Why include interviews at all? Would you learn to prepare food by reading the biographies of famous chefs, or would you learn by simply learning to dice an onion properly?

Poor writing greatly detracts from Schmitt's exposition of the material. Other reviewers here have provided examples of his murky syntax. Let me tell you, there are far more examples of poor writing lurking in this book than these reviews might lead you to believe. Having to re-read sentences 3-4 times only to find out the author himself is as confused as me just added to my frustration, and convinced me I was wasting my time with this book.

Readers who are not as snarky about syntax as I will, I'm sure, be able to derive beneficial odd and ends from this book. But, in my humble opinion, you'll be better off purchasing a book like "Eric Meyer on CSS" or "More Eric Meyer on CSS". You will become a better CSS writer by learning to emulate a Master. The examples are well written, and, in addition to achieving the specific goals listed in the beginning of each chapter, you will learn an array of other styling tricks from each chapter. Don't be put off by the books expense. $45 is quite a bit to pay for a book, but the colored fonts and the full color examples contribute to the books effectiveness very nicely. Only the relevant code is included, the updated code is in blue, and when Meyer imports entire pages into his examples, he does so in reduced size, so as not to waste space. This is the book you want to buy to master CSS.

Like psychiatry to be successful you are going to have to work at it. It's not a book to browse through, pick up a few good ideas and move on from. Nor is it a guide to CSS.

But if you are willing to read carefully and put some work into it, this book will show you how to create beautiful pages that show and print well across a wide range of display!