53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

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CSS is important. And it is being used more and more often. Cascading Style Sheets offer many advantages you don’t have in table-layouts – and first of all a strict separation between layout, or design of the page, and the information, presented on the page. Thus the design of pages can be easily changed, just replacing a css-file with another one. Isn’t it great? Well, actually, it is.

Over the last few years web-developers have written many articles about CSS and developed many useful techniques, which can save you a lot of time – of course, if you are able to find them in time. Below you’ll find a list of techniques we , as web-architects, really couldn’t live without. They are essential and they indeed make our life easier. Let’s take a look at 53 CSS-based techniques you should always have ready to hand if you develop web-sites. Links checked: June/11 2008.

You might want to take a look at the article Powerful CSS-Techniques For Effective Coding.

1. CSS Based Navigation

CSS-Technique

2. Navigation Matrix Reloaded

CSS-Technique

3. CSS Tabs

CSS-Technique

4. CSS For Bar Graphs

CSS-Technique

5. Collapsing Tables: An Example

CSS-Technique

6. Adam’s Radio & Checkbox Customisation Method

CSS-Technique

7. CSS Image Replacement

CSS-Technique

8. CSS Shadows (CSS Shadows Roundup)

CSS-Technique

9. CSS Rounded Corners Roundup (Nifty Corners)

CSS-Technique

10. Drop Cap – Capital Letters with CSS

CSS-Technique

11. Define Image Opacity with CSS

CSS-Technique

12. How to Create a Block Hover Effect for a List of Links

CSS-Technique

13. Pullquotes with CSS (Automatic Pullquotes with JavaScript and CSS

CSS-Technique

14.CSS Diagrams

CSS-Technique

15. CSS Curves

CSS-Technique

16. Footer Stick allows for the footer of a Web page to appear either at the bottom of the browser window or the bottom of the Web page content – whichever is visually lowest.

CSS-Technique

17. CSS Image Map

CSS-Technique

18. CSS Image Pop-Up

CSS-Technique

19. CSS Image Preloader


CSS-Technique

20. CSS Image Replacement for Buttons

CSS-Technique

21. Link Thumbnail

CSS-Technique

22. CSS Map Pop

CSS-Technique

23. PHP-based CSS Style Switcher

CSS-Technique

24. CSS Unordered List Calender (CSS Styled Calender)

CSS-Technique

25. CSS-Based Forms: Techniques

CSS-Technique

26. CSS-Based Tables: Techniques

CSS-Technique

27. Printing Web-Documents and CSS

CSS-Technique

28. Improved Links-Display for Print-Layouts with CSS

CSS-Technique

29. CSS-Submit Buttons
CSS-Technique

30. CSS Teaser Box

CSS-Technique

31. CSS Tricks for Custom Bullets

CSS-Technique

32. Ticked Off Links Reloaded

CSS-Technique

33. CSS Zooming

CSS-Technique

34. Creating a Star Rater using CSS

CSS-Technique

35. The ways to style visited Links

CSS-Technique

36. PDF, ZIP, DOC Links Labeling

CSS-Technique

37. Displaying Percentages with CSS


CSS-Technique

38. Image Floats without the Text Wrap

CSS-Technique

39. Let visitors decide, whether or not will they open link in a new window

CSS-Technique

40. Simple accessible external links

CSS-Technique

41. Zebra Table with JavaScript and CSS

CSS-Technique

42. Vertical Centering with CSS (Horizontal and Vertical Centering with CSS

CSS-Technique

43. Unobtrusive Sidenotes

CSS-Technique

44. Image Caption with CSS (Styled Images with Caption)

CSS-Technique

45. Dynamic Piechart with CSS

CSS-Technique

46. Format Footnotes with CSS

CSS-Technique

47. Hierarchical Sitemap with CSS

CSS-Technique

48. Snook’s Resizable Underlines

CSS-Technique

49. Switchy McLayout: An Adaptive Layout Technique

CSS-Technique

50. StyleMap: CSS+HTML Visual Sitemap

CSS-Technique

51. Custom Reading Width

CSS-Technique

52. CSS Alert Message

CSS-Technique

53. CSS Production Notes

CSS-Technique

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. Vitaly is writer, speaker, author and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to designers and developers.

  1. 251

    Sarah

    May 8th, 2008 9:36 am

    I am about to embark on a CSS learning curve of excellence thanks to this list!

    +5
  2. 252

    bilard

    May 20th, 2008 11:05 am

    Great and excellent article it’s realy helpful. Thanks again.

    +2
  3. 253

    sara

    May 22nd, 2008 1:56 pm

    Tons of resources here. Thanks!!

    0
  4. 254

    Roland Schupp

    May 28th, 2008 11:25 pm

    Thx a lot for another great resource. I am again surprised how much benefit a webdesigner can get out ouf your magazine.

    0
  5. 255

    sachin khobragade

    May 30th, 2008 3:51 am

    it’s really a great stuff !

    -1
  6. 256

    Pattern Crochet

    June 3rd, 2008 12:48 am

    Thanks for very interesting article. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles. Keep up the good work. See You

    0
  7. 257

    Jaspal Singh

    June 9th, 2008 1:54 am

    wow ! … i think i will have to brush up my skills … thnx

    -2
  8. 258

    ildvr

    June 14th, 2008 4:01 am

    very useful tricks! Thank you! but in CSS I prefer to use as little pics as design can.

    0
  9. 259

    moovendan

    June 17th, 2008 1:18 am

    cool techniques . Keep up the good work.

    0
  10. 260

    Vera

    July 2nd, 2008 11:32 pm

    This list is orgasmic. Bookmarking in every single social bookmarking service I have an account with. I cannot afford to lose this!!

    +4
  11. 261

    Dimitar

    July 10th, 2008 11:55 am

    Good TEchniques!

    +1
  12. 262

    Ivan

    July 18th, 2008 10:04 am

    Great list, but I’d like to see some better examples of some table-based forms as well. Not everyone wants to spend 3 weeks styling a “pure” css form with multiple columns.

    0
  13. 263

    Tilemahos Manolatos

    July 23rd, 2008 6:37 am

    excellent collection!

    0
  14. 264

    rajesh

    July 29th, 2008 3:24 am

    I Will use this in my website.

    0
  15. 265

    wangtao

    August 1st, 2008 6:32 am

    great source!

    0
  16. 266

    Mulli Bahr

    August 18th, 2008 1:11 am

    Great work! the 300+ responses says it all!

    I will be back for more….

    Thank you.

    -1
  17. 267

    RegEx

    August 18th, 2008 10:29 pm

    You definitely put a lot of work into collecting a bunch of tutorials. There is a ridiculous amount of “wow” commenting here and at the risk of getting lost in the mix I really have to stress that everyone starts moving towards some web standards and check out the jQuery library.

    -2
  18. 268

    oaken

    September 8th, 2008 3:30 pm

    Great list… i’ll bookmark your site… thanks

    -2
  19. 269

    Hero

    September 9th, 2008 6:52 pm

    it ‘s powerfull!
    Thank you so much!

    -2
  20. 270

    Diablo

    September 16th, 2008 3:26 pm

    thank you so much 2!aa

    -3
  21. 271

    wtf

    September 25th, 2008 12:39 pm

    Considering alot of these use and NEED Javascript, i wouldn’t call them CSS Techniques… CSS is just handy to manipulate via JS but these are not a OUT of the Box working tricks of pure CSS, they just plain need JS to work, but still handy to have that option.

    -2
  22. 272

    Üzeyir özkol

    October 4th, 2008 5:37 am

    Thank You

    -2
  23. 273

    Rahul

    October 6th, 2008 11:09 pm

    really is tremendous work in css i was so excitted to learn css really
    really really really thanks…

    -2
  24. 274

    stefan

    October 7th, 2008 11:56 am

    :O

    mega list :)

    juz wiem co bede siekal przez kilka dni :D

    -1
  25. 275

    mrRo

    October 8th, 2008 1:18 am

    Thanks so much

    -1
  26. 276

    Mauro Castaldi

    October 13th, 2008 4:46 am

    Wonderful !

    -3
  27. 277

    Anthony Mark

    October 22nd, 2008 4:18 am

    Wow what a fantastic inventory, you’ll be saving me a shed load of time, much appreciated!

    -3
  28. 278

    yubs

    October 29th, 2008 11:21 pm

    wow !!
    great !!
    thank U !!
    gogo~book mark~
    ——–in korean
    와우 !!
    멋져요!!
    고마워요!!
    북마크 고고씽~

    -1
  29. 279

    siva

    November 1st, 2008 9:26 am

    really awesome work……. a good collection of work. i have made use of lot of technique given here to create my personal page with admiring styles. thanks to all the persons behind this collection……

    -2
  30. 280

    rohit mehra

    November 5th, 2008 12:43 am

    Excellent collection of CSS. Its helps me a lot in knowing more about CSS. I hope for more collections in future.
    In the end, Great Job!!!!!

    -1
  31. 281

    Ralf Merz

    November 7th, 2008 2:57 am

    Great list! Very interesting things.

    Thank you very much for this great work!!!

    -1
  32. 282

    Max

    November 7th, 2008 7:47 am

    Excellent list, very helpful for me. Many CSS techniques were unknown for me and will surely help me on some future projects! :)

    0
  33. 283

    Chary

    November 18th, 2008 10:25 pm

    Gr8 work indeed..
    Cool CSS tricks & Nice techniques…. right here!!!

    అదిరింది గురూ!
    (in telugu)

    -1
  34. 284

    Anuradha Joshi

    November 20th, 2008 5:09 am

    its great work……………
    can i have a code of this?????
    its really excellent…….. great!!!!!!!!!!!

    -1
  35. 285

    teknoloji

    December 4th, 2008 11:21 pm

    really very helpful tutorial

    -1
  36. 286

    kavitha

    December 9th, 2008 12:05 am

    Its very great work.
    can i have a code of this samples?????

    -1
  37. 287

    Steve

    December 11th, 2008 6:28 pm

    great collection, thanks…

    -1
  38. 288

    francis.augustin

    December 14th, 2008 11:12 pm

    nice

    -1
  39. 289

    Daan Walraven

    December 16th, 2008 9:19 am

    I’m the #1000 comment!

    -1
  40. 290

    Bibi

    December 18th, 2008 8:06 pm

    really fantastic….and usefull…thanks for this

    -1
  41. 291

    ali

    December 26th, 2008 2:33 am

    YOU ! ARE ! AWSOME ! THANKS !

    -1
  42. 292

    Jaikumar

    December 29th, 2008 2:44 am

    This very wonderful tutorial.

    -1
  43. 293

    plecho

    December 30th, 2008 5:25 am

    impressive.

    -1
  44. 294

    Amber Weinberg

    January 2nd, 2009 7:27 pm

    Awesome list! I didn’t even know you could do some of this stuff with CSS!

    0
  45. 295

    Mr. Jones

    January 3rd, 2009 7:35 am

    Finally a useful article with useful information!! Thanks :-)

    0
  46. 296

    eAi-nEt

    January 12th, 2009 3:50 am

    That’s wat i’m talking about , Smashing , Just one word
    Awesome
    Thanks , we need alot of this cool posts

    0
  47. 297

    Ofer

    January 12th, 2009 4:11 am

    Finally, someone who puts all the knowledge in one place.
    i My self am a web designer for some time now (Since 1999) and i wanted to launch a page like that for CSS a long time ago, but i became lazy.
    Thumbs up, really good job, just keep it posted.

    0
  48. 298

    Daisy

    January 18th, 2009 2:41 am

    Fantastic!

    0
  49. 299

    Javaid

    January 18th, 2009 9:41 pm

    Really great.Thanks a lot. We needed them so much.

    0
  50. 300

    CSD

    February 2nd, 2009 11:29 am

    Thank you!! Great list to keep as a reference.

    0
  51. 301

    saurabh

    February 3rd, 2009 8:09 am

    great lists ! got some new tricks even .. thanks for sharing …

    0
  52. 302

    sourav sen

    February 4th, 2009 12:32 am

    Excellent list..

    0
  53. 303

    strony internetowe wrocław

    March 4th, 2009 8:26 am

    Great list to keep as a reference.

    0
  54. 304

    Me

    April 6th, 2009 12:33 am

    Still a great list! Where’s the “even more CSS techniques” :)

    +1
  55. 305

    Manuel

    April 13th, 2009 3:17 am

    no.1000

    very nice and useful list. thx

    0
  56. 306

    strony internetowe

    April 21st, 2009 7:50 am

    nice tutorial :)

    0
  57. 307

    Gemedj89

    April 25th, 2009 6:28 am

    Great !! Thanks !

    0
  58. 308

    paztel

    April 29th, 2009 9:26 am

    gracias ^^
    thanks

    0
  59. 309

    moovi

    June 17th, 2009 4:03 am

    Great Article …….. Thanks a lot

    0
  60. 310

    Armig Esfahani

    June 27th, 2009 10:12 pm

    thank you! this is exactly what i needed!

    0
  61. 311

    NotAlame

    July 11th, 2009 3:42 am

    lot of thanks for these usefull informations!!!

    0
  62. 312

    ardyonline

    July 20th, 2009 4:36 pm

    love this! nice compilation… really helpful… thanks so much… :)

    0
  63. 313

    Balian

    July 22nd, 2009 12:09 am

    That’s cool!

    0
  64. 314

    Brad Sherrill

    August 8th, 2009 10:27 am

    Great compilation of CSS Tecnhiques

    0
  65. 315

    satish Borkar

    August 24th, 2009 4:52 am

    really nice techniques
    thanks

    0
  66. 316

    Ana Astobieta

    August 28th, 2009 6:55 am

    Great list, very helpful, thanks a lot!

    0
  67. 317

    moinuddin

    September 14th, 2009 1:58 am

    it’s just great collection of CSS , Wonderfull i was not knowing many of thsi tecniques can u provides sources for all

    Moinuddin
    KSA

    0
  68. 318

    Petr Komárek

    September 22nd, 2009 5:59 am

    The 19th technique (CSS Image Preloader) dont work and will not work. If you repeat an antribute in CSS, it will every time take just the last one…

    0
  69. 319

    juders

    September 24th, 2009 3:38 pm

    The link to number 37 is: http://www.barenakedapp.com/the-design/displaying-percentages. Check it out and leave your thanks on the thread.

    0
  70. 320

    Xtence

    October 29th, 2009 8:03 am

    Nice list, looks like the one i’m using :-) good post

    0
  71. 321

    Jon

    November 1st, 2009 7:48 am

    Great list! Lots of useful info here.

    0
  72. 322

    barry eagan

    November 8th, 2009 4:31 am

    I likes to farts while traveling 40 mph.

    0
  73. 323

    Andrey Viana

    November 17th, 2009 9:09 am

    Hi, nice post, very usefull!

    There are some links are broken, or dont exists anymore:
    I don’t look to everyone, but these are some of them:

    - 12. How to Create a Block Hover… Correct link is: http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000230.php
    - 29. CSS-Submit Buttons: http://www.ukthoughts.co.uk/journal/css-submit-buttons

    0
  74. 324

    j

    November 18th, 2009 11:06 pm

    tanx for techniques…these are very useful to me…:D

    0
  75. 325

    web assassin

    November 18th, 2009 11:07 pm

    tanx for techniques…these are very useful to me…:D

    0
  76. 326

    Jeevanath

    December 23rd, 2009 11:33 pm

    Great list. tons of thanks

    0
  77. 327

    this is more like a joke

    December 24th, 2009 10:53 am

    hi mate,

    Great effort to put up an article. Your doing it not well at all. Some of the sample u showed, need javaxcript to run. So this should be call css and javascript techniques.

    0
  78. 328

    Sonfishdesign

    January 9th, 2010 8:19 pm

    This is a great list. Can you add “sticky footer” to this list?

    0
  79. 329

    Jose Anibal

    January 25th, 2010 10:57 am

    Wow, thas very wonderful, i trying to learn css, that example, will help me.

    0
  80. 330

    Milind

    February 2nd, 2010 6:54 am

    What can I say about this great work !!! … superb … absolutely superb

    0
  81. 331

    AlMubdi

    February 11th, 2010 2:42 am

    This are great techniques . Keep up the good work. & thanks for sharing

    0
  82. 332

    Markus

    February 17th, 2010 6:13 am

    Thanks!!!!!!!!!

    0
  83. 333

    Madhukar

    February 20th, 2010 8:50 pm

    Nice links very useful for designers. please inform to me any new updates are added.

    0
  84. 334

    Atestate

    February 22nd, 2010 4:03 am

    I will use some of this tips on my site atestatinfo.ro

    0
  85. 335

    balaji

    March 22nd, 2010 11:50 pm

    Nice collection.
    Useful for designers.

    0
  86. 336

    üzeyr özkol

    March 30th, 2010 10:15 pm

    Hi!
    number 37 subject “Displaying Percentages with CSS” I could not understand it :(

    0
  87. 337

    sam

    April 2nd, 2010 3:08 am

    wow.. amazing, thanks a lot

    0
  88. 338

    mohammad

    May 5th, 2010 10:46 pm

    very very very very veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy thanks

    0
  89. 339

    Farghana

    May 11th, 2010 5:34 am

    Simply amazing and awesome!

    0
  90. 340

    rakesh adnal

    May 24th, 2010 12:19 am

    Thx a lot for another great resource. I am again surprised how much benefit a webdesigner can get out ouf your magazine.

    0
  91. 341

    samat

    June 15th, 2010 12:59 am

    nice…………..

    0
  92. 342

    mantrla srinivas yadhav

    July 2nd, 2010 2:58 am

    hi technical guides yours new tips and new creative designs are very good and excellent css optimizing tips.

    0
  93. 343

    Reghu

    July 13th, 2010 8:16 am

    good one… great

    0
  94. 344

    sekar

    July 14th, 2010 5:27 am

    useful resource. I bookmarked it

    0
  95. 345

    ivan

    July 14th, 2010 4:23 pm

    very nice collection, i add some others recently i´ve posted on my website if you want a deep study check it out, its on spanish btw

    0
  96. 346

    Andrew Henderson

    September 2nd, 2010 11:01 am

    Awesome list here. Some really useful stuff. I would recommend anyone wanting to learn CSS go down the line and try these tutorials. Thanks for collecting them!

    +1
  97. 347

    Mat Marlow

    September 6th, 2010 12:20 pm

    The link on number 8 is flagged as a reported attack page in Firefox.

    0
  98. 348

    imrz

    September 29th, 2010 1:55 am

    You have written a very informative post about logo design tips. I came across your blog while searching via google.com . I have bookmarked your site and sent the link to some of my colleagues are will also find that useful.

    0
  99. 349

    mike

    September 29th, 2010 2:14 am

    I have gone through the list and that’s really a great list. I will save this link for future reference.

    0
  100. 350

    Elli Granados

    November 7th, 2010 8:07 am

    This is really one of many improved content connected with those that I have please read on this kind of matter nowadays. Great do the job.

    0
  101. 351

    admec

    November 30th, 2010 3:38 am

    nice tips, I enjoyed completely. post something more on css 3.0 also.
    Thanks a lot,
    from ADMEC Multimedia Mentors

    +1
  102. 352

    Brett Widmann

    December 9th, 2010 8:04 am

    These are perfect! I nwo have so many new ideas.

    +1
  103. 353

    web dizajn bih

    December 9th, 2010 9:53 am

    Great CSS techniques! THX

    0
  104. 354

    Preston Racette

    December 17th, 2010 1:20 pm

    For # 25. (CSS-Based Forms: Techniques) I think it looks amazing… so simple yet stylish and proffestional. The other articles are amazing too. Keep up the good work!
    prestonracette.com/

    +1
  105. 355

    Prakash

    January 10th, 2011 2:03 am

    Great Excellent CSS techniques, Thanks a lot for improve my CSS Knowledge… Keep it up and add something more I am waiting for new….

    0
  106. 356

    spinner chief

    January 17th, 2011 1:02 pm

    Keep it up, your writing is consistently a pleasure to read that I perhaps told my friends. Just enjoying this!

    +1
  107. 357

    Andre Moves

    January 25th, 2011 3:52 pm

    man and van this is great for me i didnt know few thisnk mentioned here thanks

    0
  108. 358

    designerbooster

    February 3rd, 2011 3:17 pm

    Thanks for these css tips. Was looking for a batch list like this well done.

    0
  109. 359

    sachin patil

    February 14th, 2011 4:16 am

    Hi,
    I want to use same like( “50. StyleMap: CSS+HTML Visual Sitemap”). but here I cant find specified link. its showing Page is not available. so could you please help me to get that simmillar page. Thanks in advenace. 50. StyleMap: CSS+HTML Visual Sitemap

    0
  110. 360

    Ulises Bolivar

    March 2nd, 2011 4:08 pm

    INTERESANTE APORTE

    0
  111. 361

    veeresh

    April 12th, 2011 11:39 pm

    very nice collection

    0
  112. 362

    Prem

    June 6th, 2011 1:44 am

    Simply Great Article

    Thanks

    0
  113. 363

    youtube

    June 29th, 2011 3:23 am

    tahnks for share

    0
  114. 364

    vishal

    August 25th, 2011 10:29 pm

    any thing new related to image rounded corners.

    0
  115. 365

    daxa

    September 7th, 2011 9:13 am

    Hi its vary good. i would also like to share one basic css website http://cssproperty.com

    0
  116. 366

    Curtis

    October 8th, 2011 1:19 pm

    Hi there, outstanding site. Is extremely good design. I recently got done with cosmetic classes and would like to start-up my site. I appreciate you for the good write-up!

    0
  117. 367

    yawer

    October 28th, 2011 11:39 pm

    wonderful info for me…

    0
  118. 368

    Joshua Phillips

    December 5th, 2011 11:36 pm

    Any news about A defector’s mystical disappearance?

    0
  119. 369

    Flo Perce

    December 11th, 2011 11:32 pm

    Good post, Love it. Keep it up. I appreciate it.

    0
  120. 370

    Minta Aragones

    December 11th, 2011 11:53 pm

    You have pretty nice blog here. Not bad keep it up. I will mention about this in my own blog. All the best

    0

  1. 1

    Sarah

    May 8th, 2008 9:36 am

    I am about to embark on a CSS learning curve of excellence thanks to this list!

    +5
  2. 2

    Vera

    July 2nd, 2008 11:32 pm

    This list is orgasmic. Bookmarking in every single social bookmarking service I have an account with. I cannot afford to lose this!!

    +4
  3. 3

    bilard

    May 20th, 2008 11:05 am

    Great and excellent article it’s realy helpful. Thanks again.

    +2
  4. 4

    antsae

    January 28th, 2007 1:34 am

    Very good article that i have posted on my blog. Thanks for the information.
    Regards

    +1
  5. 5

    Dimitar

    July 10th, 2008 11:55 am

    Good TEchniques!

    +1
  6. 6

    Me

    April 6th, 2009 12:33 am

    Still a great list! Where’s the “even more CSS techniques” :)

    +1
  7. 7

    Andrew Henderson

    September 2nd, 2010 11:01 am

    Awesome list here. Some really useful stuff. I would recommend anyone wanting to learn CSS go down the line and try these tutorials. Thanks for collecting them!

    +1
  8. 8

    spinner chief

    January 17th, 2011 1:02 pm

    Keep it up, your writing is consistently a pleasure to read that I perhaps told my friends. Just enjoying this!

    +1
  9. 9

    Preston Racette

    December 17th, 2010 1:20 pm

    For # 25. (CSS-Based Forms: Techniques) I think it looks amazing… so simple yet stylish and proffestional. The other articles are amazing too. Keep up the good work!
    prestonracette.com/

    +1
  10. 10

    admec

    November 30th, 2010 3:38 am

    nice tips, I enjoyed completely. post something more on css 3.0 also.
    Thanks a lot,
    from ADMEC Multimedia Mentors

    +1
  11. 11

    Brett Widmann

    December 9th, 2010 8:04 am

    These are perfect! I nwo have so many new ideas.

    +1

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