Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition is a thorough review of all aspects of CSS2.1 and a comprehensive guide to CSS implementation. The book includes new content on positioning, lists and generated content, table layout, user interface, paged media, and more. It explores in detail each individual CSS property and how it interacts with other properties, and shows how to avoid common mistakes in interpretation.

If you are a web designer or document author interested in sophisticated page styling, improved accessibility, and saving time and effort, this book is for you. All you really need before starting the book is a decent knowledge of HTML 4.0. The better you know HTML, of course, the better prepared you'll be. You will need to know very little else in order to follow this book. This second edition of the book covers CSS2 and CSS2.1, the latter of which is in many ways a clarification of the first. While some CSS3 modules have reached Candidate Recommendation status as of this writing, I have chosen not to cover them in this edition. This was done in part because the book seemed long enough without them, but also because implementation of these modules is still incomplete. I feel it's important to keep the book focused on currently supported and well-understood levels of CSS, and leave any future capabilities for future editions. Remember one thing about web standards and books: the former are continually evolving, while the latter are frozen in time (until the next edition comes out, anyway). In the case of (X)HTML and CSS, many changes are afoot even as these words are being written. Despite this, it is my hope that this second edition will stay relevant over a period of several years, as did the first edition.