HTML and CSS (6th Edition)

This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to use HTML and CSS to create responsive web pages. This includes:

• Anyone who wants to build a website, even if they have no programming experience
• Web designers who want to use HTML and CSS to implement their designs
• JavaScript programmers who want to improve their HTML and CSS skills
• Server-side developers who want to improve their HTML and CSS skills

This book gets you started with HTML and CSS as quickly as possible and then builds out your skills in a professional way. To do that, it’s divided into three sections.

Section 1: Get started fast

To get you started right, the eight chapters in this section are a crash course in using HTML and CSS to develop web pages at a professional level. This course works for beginners as well as experienced web developers. By the end of this section, you will be able to develop web pages using the same coding techniques used by today’s top professionals.

That means you’ll be using semantic HTML elements to define the structure of a page. You’ll be using the CSS box model and flexbox layout right from the beginning. And you’ll be using media queries to implement a responsive web design. That way, your web pages will work on devices with screen of all sizes, from mobile devices to desktop computers.

When you complete this section of the book, you’ll be able to develop web pages at a professional level. Then, you can skip to any other chapter to learn new skills whenever you need them.

Section 2: More skills as you need them

This section expands on section 1 by presenting additional HTML and CSS skills that you may need on the job. That includes:

• More skills for working with lists and links
• More skills for working with images, icons, fonts, and colors
• How to embed fonts so all browsers can access them
• When and how to use tables, including how to make tables responsive
• How to work with forms and built-in HTML validation
• How to add audio and video to web pages
• How to use grid layout to create complex page layouts that are difficult to achieve with flexbox layout
• How to use CSS for transitions, transforms, filters, and animation
• How to control CSS specificity

Section 3: Web design and deployment

This section expands your knowledge of web development beyond HTML and CSS. That includes:

• Today’s best practices for designing a user-centric website
• How to use GitHub to deploy a site on a web server that’s running in the cloud
• How to get a site indexed by the major search engines

What's new

When we updated this edition, we focused on what a web developer needs to know today. As a result, we cut obsolete material, rearranged some topics, and streamlined the book to make it easier than ever to learn HTML and CSS.

• We streamlined chapters 1 and 2 to help you get started more quickly.
• We modified chapter 6 so it shows how to use flexbox (not floats) for page layout. This is a better and more modern coding practice.
• We modified chapter 7 so it shows how to use CSS (not jQuery) to display navigation menus. This is a better and more modern coding practice.
• In chapter 8, we added coverage of container queries, one of the most important new features of CSS.
• We modified the website that’s presented throughout the book to use mobile-first design instead of desktop-first design since that’s a best practice for most modern websites.
• We thoroughly streamlined and reworked the chapter on HTML forms to focus on modern best practices.
• In chapter 15, we added some new CSS features including functional pseudo-class selectors and cascade layers.
• Chapter 17 now shows how to use GitHub to deploy a website to a web server that’s running on DigitalOcean’s cloud platform.

What's the same

Like the 5th edition, the 6th edition has been printed in full color. This makes the pages more engaging and attractive, and we think it makes many of the skills easier to grasp too.

In addition, the 6th edition still shows how to use the popular Visual Studio Code (VS Code) text editor. This helps you learn to develop web pages more quickly and with fewer coding errors.

• It presents modern best practices for using HTML and CSS and doesn’t waste your time by explaining old practices that are no longer recommended.
• It gets you started fast by presenting a complete subset of HTML and CSS that allows you to begin doing productive work as soon as possible.
• It teaches HTML and CSS in context so you can see how they work together to structure and format the pages of a website.
• It presents hundreds of examples that range from the simple to the complex. That way, you can quickly learn how a feature works and also see how it’s used in the real world.
• The exercises at the end of each chapter provide a way for you to gain valuable hands-on experience without extra busywork.
• It uses paired pages, with the essential syntax, guidelines, and examples on the right page and clear explanations on the left page. This helps you learn faster by reading less.
• The paired-pages format is ideal for reference when you need to refresh your memory about how to do something.

What software you need

A text editor

To develop web pages with HTML and CSS, you can use any text editor. However, we recommend using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) because it provides many features that can help you develop web pages more quickly and with fewer errors. This editor is available for free and runs on Windows and macOS.

A web browser

We recommend using the Chrome browser to do the primary testing for a web page. That’s because Chrome provides excellent developer tools that you can use to debug your web pages. This web browser is available for free and runs on Windows and macOS.