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Accessing Information With Style:
Cascading Style Sheets on the WWW

presented by
Jim Allan & Jutta Treviranus

this page contains the outline of a presentation at Closing the Gap 1997. It will be expanded to include explanatory text.

1. Introduction

• Presentors
  • Jim Allan, Statewide Technical Support Specialist
    Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
    1100 W. 45th St.
    Austin, Texas 78756
    TEL: 512-206-9315 FAX: 512-458-3395
    EMAIL: allan_jm@tsbvi.edu
    Website: http://www.tsbvi.edu
  • Jutta Treviranus, MANAGER
    Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
    Information Commons
    University of Toronto
    First Floor
    130 St. George St.
    Toronto, Ontartio
    Canada M5S 3H1
    TEL: (416) 978-5240 FAX: (416) 971-2896
    EMAIL: jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca
    Website: http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/

2. What are cascading style sheets?

A simple mechanism for specifying style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing, etc.) for web documents.

• Separating presentation from content and structure!
• Types of style sheets
  • embeded
  • linked
  • inline
  • imported
• Who has control (designer vs. viewer)?
• What does cascading mean?
  • nesting
  • inheritence
  • aggregrate styles
  • graceful degradation

3. Benefits of CSS

• For the author
  • author control of: color, typography, element placment (margins, indents, drop caps, leading)
  • cleaner coding, no longer need HTML workarounds: e.g., one-pixel GIFS, invisible table borders, invisible text for spacing
  • quick and easy style changes to an entire site
  • rather than designing to "lowest" common denominator can accomodate multiple views
  • can expoit ready to use style sheets
  • authors can concentrate on content and structure and use existing style sheets to make pages look good
• For the user
  • authors can code better. Less HTML tricks = better accessibility
    • no more tables used to format a page
    • less need for graphic headlines or other graphics with text
  • control over YOUR preferences: color, typography, element placment (margins, indents, drop caps, leading)
  • presentation of pages based on your access needs: using aural style sheets (ACSS), or braille style sheets (when it is developed)
  • may improve printing

4. Browser Support of CSS

• Internet Explorer 3.01, 4.x
• Netscape Communicator 4.x
• Opera (Europe)
• Sensus (soon to be released)
• pwWebspeak
• Emac Speak (Unix)

5. Authoring Tool Support of CSS

• W3C Editor support for stylesheets
• http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/css/gallery/cssinf5.htm
• levels of support

6. Implications for Users with Various Disabilities

• low vision
  • text size
  • link text color
  • line spacing
  • indent
  • text and background color
  • table cell layout and format
  • thicken anchored IMG borders
• Braille- BrailleCSS Action Item: Requirements Document Draft document by Jason White of the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind in Austrailia.
• Audio- Aural Cascading Style Sheets (ACSS) draft proposal concerning the aural (auditory) presentation of web based materials.
• Physical Disability
  • link size
  • spacing

7. How to Write a CSS

• - using a text editor
• - example utility: LPCSS editor - download csshelp.zip (19K)
• - CSSCheck, a Cascading Style Sheets Lint

CSS Resources

• Web Style Sheets - style sheet information from the W3C. Good example of style usage. Excellent source of latest information and tools.
• CSS1 support in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 - the title says it all.
• D.J. Quad's Ultimate Style Sheets Tutorial - basic introduction to style sheets
• Web Worker's Toolbox - easy to understand information, with examples.
• PC Magazine's InternetUser - Internet Toolkit (Internet Search: Style Sheets) - list of articles by Ziff-Davis, and other resources.
• Project Cool Developer Zone tutorials - warning! frames. reference of style tags, browser implementation, and examples
• Style Sheet Resource Centre - page of links to CSS information, sample style sheets, includes an unused discussion forum.
• Style Sheets Guide Index Page - comprehensive site, but has not been updated recently. (refers to IE3beta1)
• Web Designer's Guide to Style Sheets- website for book by the same name. Author: Steven Mulder. ISBN: 1-56830-306-8.
• Web Design Group -- Cascading Style Sheets - excellent site, tutorial, structure and rules, properties, references, and a style sheet syntax checker.
• CSSCheck, a Cascading Style Sheets Lint - check any style sheet for proper syntax, and compatibility with browsers
• Microsoft -- User's Guide to Style Sheets - links to many documents related to style sheets and Microsoft products.
• Effective Use of Cascading Style Sheets (Alertbox July 1997) good philosopy from Jakob Neilson.
• Cascading Style Sheets : Designing for the Web - a book recomended by Jakob Neilson. Link takes you to Amazon Books site for ordering and reviews.
• news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylsheets usenet newgroup focusing on style sheets
• Webmonkey - HTML basic tutorial about writing stylesheets
• Styel Sheets and the Macintosh Eric Meyer's page about style sheets on the Macintosh platform.
• Cascade CSS editor for the Macintosh

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Last Revision: July 30, 2002