Most people buy computer books to learn, yet it's amazing how few books are written by teachers. I take pride that our HOT (Hands-On Training) books are written by experienced teachers, who are familiar with training students in specialized subject matter. In this book, you'll find carefully developed exercises to help you learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)—one of the most compelling and versatile Web design languages used today. This book is targeted to beginning-level and intermediate-level Web authors, programmers, and Web designers who want to learn about Web styling and the basic properties of CSS quickly and easily. The premise of the hands-on approach is to get you up to speed quickly with CSS while actively working through the lessons in this book. It's one thing to read about document styling, markup, and principles, and it's another experience entirely to write it yourself and achieve measurable results. Our motto is, "Read the book, follow the exercises, and you'll learn the subject." I have received countless testimonials, and it is my goal to make sure this motto remains true for all our HOT books. This book doesn't set out to cover every single aspect of CSS, but it will build a strong foundation that will enable you to learn the more difficult techniques much more easily. What Eric and I saw missing from the bookshelves was a process-oriented tutorial teaching readers core principles, techniques, and tips in a hands-on format. I welcome your comments at csshot@lynda.com. If you run into any trouble while you're working through this book, check out the technical support link at www.lynda.com/book/css. Eric and I hope this book will enhance your skills in CSS and Web design in general. If it does, we have accomplished the job we set out to do!

—Lynda Weinman

About Eric Meyer

Eric A. Meyer has been working with the Web since late 1993 and is one of the world's foremost experts on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. A widely read author, he is also the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting (www.complexspiral .com), which focuses on helping clients save money and increase efficiency through the use of standards-oriented Web design techniques: It counts Apple Computer, Macromedia, and Wells Fargo Bank among its clients.

Author of Eric Meyer on CSS (New Riders) and Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly & Associates), as well as numerous articles for A List Apart, Vitamin, the O'Reilly Network, Web Techniques, and Web Review, Eric was a member of the CSS Working Group for seven years and coordinated the authoring and creation of the W3C's official CSS Test Suite. He has lectured for a wide variety of organizations including Los Alamos National Laboratory, the New York Public Library, Cornell University, and the University of Northern Iowa. Eric has also delivered addresses and technical presentations at numerous conferences, among them An Event Apart (which he cofounded), the IW3C2 WWW series, Web Design World, the CMP Web conference series, SXSW, the User Interface conference series, and The Other Dreamweaver Conference.

Eric lives in Cleveland, Ohio, which is a much nicer city than you've been lead to believe. For nine years, he was the host of “Your Father's Oldsmobile,” a weekly Big Band-era radio show heard on WRUW 91.1-FM in Cleveland, and he hopes to get back to it one day. When not otherwise busy, Eric is usually playing with his wife and daughter.