The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

by Rachel Andrew

A practical guide on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for professionals and novices, that can be used both as a tutorial and read cover-to-cover or as a handy and practical reference book to common problems, solutions and effects. The 2nd edition is now full-color throughout and is completely updated and revised with the latest tips & tricks.

This book will show you how

Genres: Programming, Reference, Website Design, Web, Technology, Technical, Design

392 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2004

About the author

Rachel Andrew is a British web developer, author and speaker. She is an Invited Expert to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) CSS Working Group, Google Developer Expert, and a former member of the Web Standards Project. She is the editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine.

Reviews

[Bokieie]

I started reading it after a lot of recommendations but it wasn't gone up to the standards. Maybe it's just me, but I was expecting more.

[Bryan Higgs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book just after reading HTML Utopia HTML Utopia by the same author. (See my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).

This book suffers from many of the same problems as HTML Utopia -- it's quite out of date. Specifically, it doesn't talk about HTML5 or CSS3 (neither of which were around at the time). Now, at least, the author has published a new edition: The CSS3 Anthology: Take Your Sites To New Heights, 4th Edition which apparently talks about CSS3 and HTML5 ; I haven't read that version, so can't really review it.

This book consists of a very short introduction to CSS, and then provides a large number of "Tips, Tricks and Hacks" using HTML and CSS. While this is definitely useful, I dislike books that focus on "tricks and hacks", since I believe they tend to encourage people to just copy code without understanding it properly. Most of these so-called "tricks" are relatively obvious if you understand CSS and how it relates to HTML. If you spent the time to thoroughly understand CSS and HTML, you could probably figure out all these "tricks" for yourself. On the other hand, the book does provide a useful background, and does explain how things work pretty well.

I suspect that I would give the latest edition of this book a higher star rating, as I presume it is more up to date (although its publish date is March 2012, and a lot has happened since even then).

[Dhuaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good book containing a lot of tips and tricks from various departments, starting at beautifying design and ending at improving usability and accessibility. It's compiled in very user-friendly format of questions and answers with full source code. It is, however, targeted at CSS novices - or it used to be an overwhelming compendium five years ago, when CSS was still new.
SitePoint has recently released 3rd edition of this book (I have 1st) - but I've read its info and it looks like it was updated with revised source codes and tricks for IE7/IE8 and FF3. It's quite misleading now to label such a book as "101 Essential Tips, Tricks and Hacks" because it implies more advanced approach than what CSS Anthology really contains. It's a good book for beginners, but not worth the money for advanced users.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should I use pixels, points, ems, or another unit identifier to set font sizes? How do I form elements using CSS? How do I set an item’s position on the page using CSS?

The CSS Anthology sets out a question and answer type of resource. Most people using this book will be browsing the topics for solutions to particular problems. However, if worked through from start to finish, this book would even serve beginners well.

The CSS Anthology is complete with full code and illustrations. I find this aspect is particularly useful for trying out different approaches. The book also contains a lot of good tips about compatibility and when CSS is not the best choice.

[Gabriele D'Amato · Rating 4 out of 5]

E' un ottimo testo per imparare i primi rudimenti dei CSS. Attualmente risulta un po' datato visto l'uso ormai consolidato dei CSS3. Ad ogni modo molte tecniche rimangono ottime e aiutano a comprendere meglio (e ricordare) come andrebbero trattati certi problemi e contesti. Gli esempi sono molto buoni e spesso specificati passo passo. Il codice è fondamentalmente semplice e lo si può seguire bene grazie a spiegazioni molto precise e un linguaggio adatto a tutti. Insomma, un libro che fa bene a chi vuole imparare, ma anche a chi ha già imparato e vuole ricordare meglio.

[Hamed Mazaheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book for those who are less familiar with CSS, but I think too much is not useful for beginner, tricks are very good and very simple language they are learning.
absolutely recommend to people who are still learning CSS.
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اين كتاب توسط اميرحسين عبدالعلي به فارسي ترجمه شده و توسط انتشارات ناقوس به چاپ رسيده كه ترجمه بسيار روان به همراه نكات ميفيدي دارد.

[Richard Piet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set up as questions posed with clear answers, this CSS handbook is probably the best problem solver book I have found. As my students ask about their design problems, most solutions can be found with clear examples, and sample code.

It is a highly recommended book to use to understand the fundamentals of designing with CSS

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best CSS book I have found.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good solid groundwork in CSS for folks like me who learn best through figuring out how to do a specific task, rather than starting with the absolute fundamentals first.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent source of CSS!! Great examples and explanations!!

[Katherine Parker]

Well, I never got far into this book and had to take it back to the library...

[Mostafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for beginners. you can find practical solutions and learn tricks very fast.

[Rejeev Divakaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good CSS Beginers. Very readable writting style.

[Farhad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I taught me practical CSS and its common tricks in a short time.

[Mr. Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very informative, and surprisingly easy to read. Made me wish I could start all of my web projects over and do them right.

[Derek Bridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

CSS tips, tricks & hacks - just like it says on the can. Very useful format. After you've learned what CSS is, this is the ideal next book on the topic, prior to something more advanced.

[Giuseppe Pizzimenti · Rating 3 out of 5]

campionario di soluzioni pronte e di facile lettura, ma che si mantiene di livello introduttivo

[Audrey Teo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant reference book. Very visual with lots of colour which is important for visually inclined web designers

[Leo Polovets · Rating 3 out of 5]

1/3 of the tips are good, 1/3 are tiny variations of previous tips, and 1/3 are not useful.