HTML Styles

All formatting can be moved out of the HTML document and into a separate style sheet with HTML 4.0.

How to Use Styles

When a browser reads a style sheet, it will format the document according to it.

There are three ways of inserting a style sheet:

External Style Sheet

When the style is applied to many pages an external style sheet is ideal. Using an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire Web site by changing one file. Each page must link to the style sheet using the <link> tag. The <link> tag goes inside the head section.

Internal Style Sheet

When a single document has a unique style an internal style sheet should be used. You define internal styles in the head section with the <style> tag.

<head>
      <style type="text/css">
            body {background-color: red}
            p {margin-left: 20px}
      </style>
</head>

Inline Styles

When a unique style is to be applied to a single occurrence of an element an inline style should be used.

To use inline styles, use the style attribute in the relevant tag. The style attribute can contain any CSS property. The example shows how to change the color and the left margin of a paragraph:

<p style="color: red; margin-left: 20px">
This is a paragraph
</p>

Style Tags

Tag	Description
<style>	Defines a style definition
<link>	Defines a resource reference
<div>	Defines a section in a document
<span>	Defines a section in a document
<font>	Deprecated. Use styles instead
<basefont>	Deprecated. Use styles instead
<center>	Deprecated. Use styles instead