A cascading style sheet (CSS) is a Web page derived from multiple
sources with a defined order of precedence where the definitions of any style
element conflict. The Cascading Style Sheet, level 1 (CSS1) recommendation from the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C), which is implemented in the latest
versions of the Netscape and Microsoft Web browsers, specifies the possible
style sheets or statements that may determine how a given element is presented
in a Web page.
CSS gives more control over the appearance of a Web page to the
page creator than to the browser designer or the viewer. With CSS, the sources
of style definition for a given document element are in this order of
precedence:
1.
The STYLE attribute on an individual
element tag
2.
The STYLE element that defines a
specific style sheet containing style declarations or a LINK element that links
to a separate document containing the STYLE element. In a Web page, the STYLE
element is placed between the TITLE statement and the BODY statement.
3.
An imported style sheet, using the
CSS @import notation to automatically import and merge an external style sheet
with the current style sheet
4.
Style attributes specified by the
viewer to the browser
5.
The default style sheet assumed by
the browser
In general, the Web page creator's style sheet takes precedence,
but it's recommended that browsers provide ways for the viewer to override the
style attributes in some respects. Since it's likely that different browsers will
choose to implement CSS1 somewhat differently, the Web page creator must test
the page with different browsers.
CSS can be divided into 3 types:
They are:
1. Inline CSS
2. Internal CSS
3. External CSS
