Type text CSS is a fundamental aspect of web development, and understanding how to style HTML elements is crucial for creating visually appealing websites.
The font family property allows you to specify the font used to display text, and it's a great place to start when experimenting with type text CSS. You can list multiple fonts to provide a fallback in case the user's device doesn't support the first one.
Choosing the right font can greatly impact the overall look and feel of your website. For example, the font family property can be used to specify serif fonts like Times New Roman or sans-serif fonts like Arial.
Style Sheet Basics
Style sheets are a major breakthrough for Web page designers, expanding their ability to improve the appearance of their pages.
They supersede the limited range of presentation mechanisms in HTML and solve problems such as proprietary HTML extensions, converting text into images, and using images for white space control.
Style sheets make it easy to specify the amount of white space between text lines, the amount lines are indented, the colors used for the text and the backgrounds, the font size and style, and a host of other details.
A short CSS style sheet can set the text color of a paragraph to green and surround it with a solid red border.
The following are some common techniques that style sheets solve:
- Using proprietary HTML extensions
- Converting text into images
- Using images for white space control
- Use of tables for page layout
- Writing a program instead of using HTML
Style sheets are not limited to a single medium, they can be applied to specific media or media groups, such as screen use or printing.
Linking Style Sheets
Linking style sheets is an essential part of using CSS, and it's surprisingly easy. You can link an external style sheet to your HTML document using the LINK element.
To specify an external style sheet, you need to set the value of the href attribute to the location of the style sheet file, which is a URI. You also need to set the value of the type attribute to indicate the language of the linked style sheet resource.
You can specify that the style sheet is persistent, preferred, or alternate by adding keywords to the rel attribute. For example, to make a style sheet the author's preferred style, you can add the title attribute with the name of the choice.
Here are the key attributes of the LINK element for specifying external style sheets:
- href: the location of the style sheet file
- type: the language of the linked style sheet resource
- rel: the relationship between the document and the style sheet (persistent, preferred, or alternate)
- title: the name of the style sheet choice
You can also use the META element to set the document's preferred style sheet, but if two or more META declarations or HTTP headers specify the preferred style sheet, the last one takes precedence.
Working with CSS
Working with CSS can be a bit tricky, especially when you're using multiple styles on the same website. External, internal, and inline CSS all have different levels of specificity, which determines how they interact with each other.
External CSS has the least specificity, making it the easiest to override with internal or inline CSS. Internal CSS is more specific than external, but less specific than inline CSS, giving it the power to override external CSS but not inline CSS.
Here's a quick rundown of how specificity works in CSS:
- External CSS has the least specificity.
- Internal CSS has more specificity than external CSS.
- Inline CSS has the highest specificity.
The order of specificity is key to understanding how your website will look on the front end. If there are conflicting CSS rules, the browser will apply the one with the highest specificity. This means that inline CSS can override both external and internal CSS.
To remember this concept, think of it like a hierarchy: whatever style of CSS is closest to the HTML is considered more relevant and will be applied.
Text Styling Options
You can change the size of your text using the CSS font-size declaration, which allows you to set the size to whatever you want. For example, you can use the font-size: 18px; declaration to make your text a little bit bigger.
Most browsers display text in the Times New Roman font by default, but you can change this by using the CSS font-family declaration to specify a different font. For instance, you can use the font-family: Arial; declaration to change your font to Arial.
Some common web-safe fonts that you can use on any website include Arial, Courier, Garamond, Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.
Text Styling
Text styling is a crucial aspect of web design, and CSS makes it easy to alter the look of text without changing the underlying HTML. You can change the size of text, font, boldness, alignment within a paragraph, and more using CSS.
One of the simplest ways to make a major change to the look of the text on a webpage is to change the font. You can use the CSS font-family declaration to specify what font you want to use instead, such as Arial, Courier, Garamond, Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, or Verdana.
To change the size of text, you can use the CSS font-size declaration to set the size to whatever you want, such as 18px. You can also use percentages or relative measurements, but pixels (px) are a good choice for simplicity's sake.
You can also change the alignment of your text using the CSS text-align declaration. The values are predictable: left, right, justify, or center. For example, you can use text-align: center to center your text.
Here are some common web-safe fonts you can use on any website:
- Arial
- Courier
- Garamond
- Georgia
- Helvetica
- Tahoma
- Times New Roman
- Trebuchet MS
- Verdana
Remember, not every browser will recognize every font, so it's best to stick with the built-in fonts that most browsers will recognize.
Sources
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