FAO Web guide: 6.3 Use of style sheets

Web Guide home 1. Introduction 2. Web publishing basics 3. Planning 4. Content collection 5. Design 6. Construction 7. Testing 8. Launch 9. Maintenance 10. Writing for the Web Resources 1.1 FAO and the Internet: What is an FAO Web site? 1.2 Quality criteria of Web sites 1.3 An introduction to Web accessibility at FAO 1.4 Electronic publishing at FAO 2.1 Content quality 2.2 Roles in Web publishing 2.3 Web site quality clearance and continuity 2.4 Policy and legal matters 2.5 Language coverage policy 2.6 Web site traffic monitoring 2.7 Static and dynamic content 2.8 Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.9 Social Media Guidelines 2.10 Current server structure at FAO 3.1 What and (who) is the site for and what is it about?3.2 Define the Web site subject scope 3.3 Define your audience 3.4 Identify resources 3.5 How to track and share planning decisions 4.1 Developing a content inventory 4.2 FAO content repositories 4.3 Metadata 5.1 Review user needs 5.2 Defining information architecture 5.3 Prepare interface design 5.4 Define technical implementation 5.5 Tracking design implementation 6.1 Management of files/naming 6.2 HTML and coding 6.3 Use of style sheets 6.4 Graphics 6.5 Conversion of electronic documents 6.6 Language encoding 6.7 Link management 6.8 Printable pages 6.9 Providing access to search 6.10 Domains, URLs and aliases 6.11 Tools 7.1 Testing approaches 7.2 How to use the test environment 8.1 Launch checklist 8.2 Promotion 9.1 Quality assurance and routine checking 9.2 Update procedures for Web sites 9.3 Web usage analysis 9.4 Evaluation of Web sites 10.1 Writing a page of text 10.2 Organizing your text on the page 10.3 How to optimize content for search engines 10.4 How to write feedback, error messages 10.5 Quotations 10.6 Non-discriminatory language Checklists Acronyms Newsletter Guidelines Policies Procedures Web resources Tag cloud Contacts 2.3a Data ownership 2.3b Regulation of access to servers 2.3c Clearance of Web sites by OCP 2.4a Country names, flags and maps 2.4b The fao.org domain, subdomains and root directories 2.4c Use of FAO emblem and logos 2.4d Politically sensitive material 2.6a FAO Web sites: the user perspective 2.6b How to gather user information: user research 2.6c Designing for the user 2.6d Page size and downloading 2.7a Static content 2.7b Dynamic content 2.7c Content Management Systems (CMS) 2.9a FAO and Facebook 2.9b FAO and Flickr 2.9c FAO and Google+2.9d FAO and LinkedIn 2.9e FAO and SlideShare 2.9f FAO and Twitter 2.9g FAO and Wikipedia 2.9h FAO and YouTube 4.3a What is metadata?4.3b Why embed metadata in Web pages?4.3c How to embed basic metadata in the HTML head section 4.3d How to create or improve current metadata 4.3e FAO standards for encoded metadata 4.3f Metadata, search engines and their robots 5.2a Identify Web pages and subject categories 5.2b Define navigation 5.2c Define metadata and search requirements 5.3a Corporate visual identity 5.3b Web site design usability principles 6.1a How to use the FTP server 6.2a HTML and XHTML 6.2b Browser compatibility 6.2c New windows and pop-ups 6.2d JavaScript 6.2e HTML title and metadata tags 6.3a CSS and Web accessibility 6.3b Cascading Style sheets (CSS) and browser compatibility 6.4a Graphic formats 6.4b Use of images on the Web 6.4c Photos 6.5a Converting Word documents into PDF 6.6a Guidelines for language encoding 6.6b Multilingual interfaces 6.7a Linking files across languages 6.7b Links to the FAO home page, FAO copyright and AskFAO 6.7c Absolute and relative links 6.7d Avoid spamming on e-mail addresses 6.8a How to prepare print-safe Web pages using CSS 6.8b Other ways of preparing print-safe Web pages 6.11a Recommended editing tools for Web site construction 6.11b Graphics, document and conversion tools 9.1a Maintaining quality 9.1b Content freshness
	Web Guide > webguide > 6. Construction > 6.3 Use of style sheets
	6.3 Use of style sheets Guideline What is CSS? Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) describe how documents are presented on screen or in print. When combined with structural markup language such as HTML, XHTML, or XML, the CSS provides Internet browsers with the information that enables them to present all the visual aspects and elements of a Web document. Thus, by using CSS, it is possible to separate out document presentation from document content. An example of CSS code: Styling The presentational effects that can be applied using CSS includes the layout of all the page elements such as the banner, the menus and the content. Also, the formatting of all content such as font type, font size, spacing between paragraphs, positioning of images, background colours etc. The HTML, XHTML, or XML controls the structure of the Web page, which means determining that certain text is a heading, other text is a paragraph, certain words are a list of hyperlinks, etc. CSS summary CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets Styles are stored in an external Style Sheet (or CSS file) Styles define how HTML elements are displayed CSS enable you to change the appearance and layout of all the pages in your Web site by editing a single CSS file Multiple CSS can be referenced inside a single HTML document XSLT Extensible Style sheet Language Transformations (XSLT) is a language for transforming XML. An XSLT style sheet specifies the presentation of a class of XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses a formatting vocabulary, such as (X)HTML or XSL-FO.	References and resources W3C Cascading Style Sheets Specification (CSS2) W3C CSS Validation Service