What CSS does

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a stylesheet language that describes how markup should be presented. Using HTML as the example, a simple way to think about CSS is: it styles the HTML.

Why do we need it?

If CSS only handles presentation, is it really necessary? Compare these two versions of a site I built with HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript.

The first screenshot shows the styled site:

The second shows what happens when its stylesheet is removed from the HTML head:

The difference is clear. The content is still present without CSS, but its layout and visual treatment are gone. The original article compares that bare presentation to going outside without clothes—a memorable way to describe the role styling plays.

What this series will cover

The series begins with basic CSS syntax. After the fundamentals, the original plan was to combine CSS with HTML and work through building a complete website.