As you might imagine, trying to introduce a topic as complex as CSS in a 150 page book that includes lots of big color pictures (which is the format for the Visual QuickProject series) was somewhat of a daunting task. Our thought before we wrote it was that CSS has plenty of big, thick books that assume lots of prior knowledge of Web development, and that really dig into the details of how and why CSS works. As I recall, we suggest some of those books at the end of our book, because we knew that if we did our job right, people would want to know more about CSS.

Did we know that we would have to leave out explanations and examples, simply because we would not have the space? Sure. Going in, our publisher had told us that we had a maximum page count. We were certain that experienced reviewers would say, as you did, that the book needs more of this or that.

Our goal was to demystify CSS and show how it is, at its heart, something that anyone can create and use to build their own Web sites. Too many people, even those who are familiar with HTML markup, look at CSS for the first time and find it confusing. We wanted to provide a gentle, “just enough,” introduction to CSS for those folks, and we think we succeeded.

It’s our hope that people will read and enjoy our book, successfully learn some CSS, then confidently move on to other books or Web sites to learn more.