Hi Caryl,
 You could try just replacing your font tags with styles, to get your feet wet.If you have one primary 
font/color/size for your page, using a style declaration would save you having to repeat that information 
after every heading. With style sheets, you can declare the basic fonts for the tags you use on a page and 
be done. 

Then, if you decide to change the body text from centered dark red 14 pt Ariel (for example) to left-
aligned 10pt Verdana, you can do it with one change in the style declaration for that page or site, and 
dont have to go through every paragraph again. Honestly, it's like magic! 

There is a lot more you can do with style sheets, but I'd recommend starting with eliminating font tags -- 
they are SUCH a time gobbler!

 Your best bet would be to take one of your simpler pages and make a copy of it with a slightly different 
name, upload it, and use it for experiementing on -- that way you'll have your good pages online until 
you're ready to go prime time with your style sheet'd one.

You dont have to know everything to get started. It may help you to understand how it works if you think 
of everything as an exception from a previously declared rule: first, the browser's own rules about 
presentation; second, your external declarations, which depart from the browser default; third, an inline 
style block that departs from the external style sheet.
You can also define subclasses (special exceptions to your general rules) that may be applied to different 
tags.

I suggest you begin with an external style sheet, which will be a text file with a .css extension. You can 
do it your text editor (notepad, etc.) or download a free style editor like TopStyle Lite 
http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/tslite/index.asp 

A tutorial is at http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/ie_style.html#css

He suggests putting a style block on each page for starters-- you can do it either way, just read a bit, 
pick whatever seems easier to you and focus on that til you feel comfortable with it.

In your stylesheet, you can define any HTML tag you wish in terms of size, color, font-family, and other 
aspects. You dont have to include every possible tag or every definition, just the ones that interest you, 
eg color, and leave the rest to the browser default.

PLease feel free to email me if I can help you with it.

Regards,

Pam Shorey ;-)


 



9/15/02 12:44:34 PM, "Caryl Milton" <tippybird(at)earthlink.net> wrote:

>I have four "hobby" web pages written in old-style HTML.  Because of some of
>the JavaScript, they don't validate.  If I remove the JavaScript they do,
>but the JS is in links to other sites that I don't want to remove.
>
>Now I'm contemplating moving to Style Sheets, but am wondering if the "need"
>to do so is worth the trouble.  My few pages are each quite different
>(fonts, backgrounds, etc.).  Can anyone shed light on just "when" it is
>important to move to CSS?  I have to admit that when I did some research on
>it my eyes began to cross and it didn't sink in.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Caryl
>
>
>

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