CSS How To

When a browser reads a style sheet, it will format the HTML document according to the information in the style sheet.

Three Ways to Insert CSS

There are three ways of inserting a style sheet:

  • External style sheet
  • Internal style sheet
  • Inline style
  • External Style Sheet

    With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire website by changing just one file!

    Each page must include a reference to the external style sheet file inside the <link> element. The <link> element goes inside the <head> section:

    Example -

    An external style sheet can be written in any text editor. The file should not contain any html tags. The style sheet file must be saved with a .css extension.

    Here is how the "mystyle.css" looks:

    Example -

    Internal Style Sheet

    An internal style sheet may be used if one single page has a unique style.

    Internal styles are defined within the <style> element, inside the <head> section of an HTML page:

    Example -

    Inline Styles

    An inline style may be used to apply a unique style for a single element.To use inline styles, add the style attribute to the relevant element. The style attribute can contain any CSS property.

    Example -

    Cascading Order

    What style will be used when there is more than one style specified for an HTML element?

    Generally speaking we can say that all the styles will "cascade" into a new "virtual" style sheet by the following rules, where number one has the highest priority:

  • Inline style (inside an HTML element)
  • External and internal style sheets (in the head section)
  • Browser default
  • So, an inline style (inside a specific HTML element) has the highest priority, which means that it will override a style defined inside the <head> tag, or in an external style sheet, or a browser default value.