HTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide

The authors are deeply knowledgeable and the book's learning path is well designed. I found it extraordinarily useful to have the digital version included in the deal - I could read it on my iPad in Starbucks and make notes. I could also have it open on my iMac in my study, right next to my Dreamweaver windows. The writers' (there are two of them) tone is graceful and intelligent, but not overly familiar (an unfortunate trend in some of the "Missing Manual" series). The writers threw in enough humor to keep the text readable, but they remembered that I bought the tool as a professional resource and have limited time for pleasantries. In sum, I felt like I was in good hands.This book gives you a lot of value for your money. Originally, I rated it as a 4, because there are three flaws persistent enough to draw attention:1) There are some knots in the writing - a few places where the writers' prose becomes opaque and a second and third reading of the paragraph in question still did not yield the sense. (A visit from a stern editor would fix this in a jiffy.)2) The graphic convention used to link images and text doesn't quite work. It consists of labeling the illustrations with very small circles with letters in them, which are then referenced in the text by an even smaller circles containing letters. The tiny tags are hard to read and keep track of, especially when a particular page can get up to "k" in the alphabet. This technique makes conversion to a flowing eBook easy, but it makes scanning the print version a bit of a challenge. This is, primarily, a graphic problem, and there is enough white space in the print version to fix it.3) There are references to other discussions in the print version that do not contain page references. Understandable in the eBook version, but they should have been present in the hardcopy edition.I feel guilty listing these flaws. I'm a writer myself, and I know the scale of what the authors have accomplished. That's why, in the end, I had to give this book a 5. The book's subject matter is vast, and the authors must present it in the broad view, while at the same time feeding their readers the fine-grain detail that makes HTML and CSS work. They have succeeded brilliantly. In the end, I decided it would have been churlish to give this a 4, given the mountains of solid information the authors have passed along to their readers.

I have been buying Elizabeth Castro's books on HTML ever since she started. This book is a wonderful new edition and a step up from anyone who is familiar with good old HTML4 - but needs to bring their skills up to modern day. Also or for anyone wishing to learn HTML from the bottom up. Elizabeth's books are so clearly laid out with examples, and highlighted text, they are always a pleasure to read, and or utilize as a reference. The book also comes with a free eBook copy and other wonderful online support features. You simply cannot do better than using this book for learning HTML (& CSS). (Works terrific with free Alleycode HTML editor, and or other text editors such as Notepadd++.

I've been using the HTML Visual QuickStart Guide since 2nd Edition. I skipped the 7th edition because at the time I felt that the technologies added were too playground-ish to use in production for a web site that was not a web app. Also, I'm kind of loyal to Liz Castro and the updates from 6th Edition onward aren't hers and the style is definitely different in ways that felt out of place. What's changed is that as of this point in time, HTML 5 is no longer really a stubborn rejection of W3C's stagnant attempts at standardization. It IS a standard all its own now, with basically universal support in modern browsers, and it degrades properly, which cannot really be said of the now abandoned "future of the web" W3C was pushing for.In short, HTML 5 won, W3C lost, the clunky explanation of the standards war and the push to XMLify the web is gone, and Liz has moved on to focus on the world of digital publishing with her excellent [ASIN:0321734688 EPub Straight to the Point] (which I highly recommend BTW). Bruce Hyslop is now at the helm of this title, and by this edition he's updated enough of the book at this point that it no longer feels like a messy patch…developers, you know what I mean. And Bruce is a highly competent and accomplished author in his own right who knows his material and presents it well. It's still the best book of its type on the market bar none, even if I would truly rate it only 4.75 stars instead of 5 if I could. ;)And what type of book is it? Well, if you're just looking for a few tips on how to use some software to get a page on the web, this isn't your book. If you're looking for a guide to writing web apps, this isn't your book. If you haven't a clue what a web page is or how it works, this probably isn't your book. If you basically understand what a web page is, that it consists of content marked up with tags that have their own meaning irrespective of how they look on the screen, that there's a whole separate language for defining what those tags look like, and you're really just looking for a guide to show you how to use the various tags and markup to accomplish the goals you've set out for yourself… THIS IS YOUR BOOK.It's your book if you intend to become a web developer as a regular thing, and it's your book if you have other duties but find yourself needing to include some web development/publishing amongst them. Its purpose is to get you comfortable with the code—the building blocks that make make up your pages. What you do with them from there is entirely up to you. From there, even if you ultimately decide to use some framework written in PHP, Ruby, or Python, or if you start designing your own framework… you'll have the tools to understand the HTML and CSS portion of it, and just enough of the Javascript to make those work. All of those other technologies… they're other books unto themselves.Ultimately if you want to just do a thing on the web, you can find another way than reading this book. But if you want to understand what you're doing as you do it, this is the book to do it. And it has been for at least 17 years now.

My only concern is that the author uses the same illustrations (web site example) for every chapter / topic. The book covers responsive design very well. Author explains every point well.

Just received my very good used copy today - perfect condition! More importantly, the content is so understandable and well presented. The paper quality and print size are also excellent. I love E. Castro’s books - so well written!

Wonderful!

Great for beginners! I know a bit HTML and very little CSS but this book guides me to more professional level with the printed version and online source. There is plenty of nice things to read, if you like to build up a website not using website-builder. After people finish this book, that's probably time to go with javascript.Good:well-organized content structureterms explanation pagese-version which you can downloadonline source contains html and css codeAlso, do not buy any book explains just simple concept of html and css, as this really won't help you build up a real site!

An Amazing book....Pros:cheap....good writing style...cons...about 400-500 pages only:(very little content......conclusion:buy it....but first go through the codecademy html and css course

Not too may visual code examples, but great explanations. Easily covers the first two semesters of college courses in HTML.