- CSS Website Layout
- Header
- Example
- Header
- Navigation Bar
- Example
- Content
- Example
- Column
- Column
- Column
- Unequal Columns
- Example
- Side
- Main Content
- Side
- Footer
- Example
- Responsive Website Layout
- HTML Styles — CSS
- CSS = Styles and Colors
- What is CSS?
- Using CSS
- Inline CSS
- Example
- A Blue Heading
- Internal CSS
- Example
- This is a heading
- External CSS
- Example
- This is a heading
- «styles.css»:
- CSS Colors, Fonts and Sizes
- Example
- This is a heading
- CSS Border
- Example
- CSS Padding
- Example
- CSS Margin
- Example
- Link to External CSS
- Example
- Example
- Example
- Chapter Summary
- HTML Exercises
- HTML Style Tags
CSS Website Layout
A website is often divided into headers, menus, content and a footer:
There are tons of different layout designs to choose from. However, the structure above, is one of the most common, and we will take a closer look at it in this tutorial.
Header
A header is usually located at the top of the website (or right below a top navigation menu). It often contains a logo or the website name:
Example
Header
Navigation Bar
A navigation bar contains a list of links to help visitors navigating through your website:
Example
/* The navbar container */
.topnav overflow: hidden;
background-color: #333;
>
/* Navbar links */
.topnav a float: left;
display: block;
color: #f2f2f2;
text-align: center;
padding: 14px 16px;
text-decoration: none;
>
/* Links — change color on hover */
.topnav a:hover background-color: #ddd;
color: black;
>
Content
The layout in this section, often depends on the target users. The most common layout is one (or combining them) of the following:
- 1-column (often used for mobile browsers)
- 2-column (often used for tablets and laptops)
- 3-column layout (only used for desktops)
We will create a 3-column layout, and change it to a 1-column layout on smaller screens:
Example
/* Create three equal columns that float next to each other */
.column float: left;
width: 33.33%;
>
/* Clear floats after the columns */
.row:after content: «»;
display: table;
clear: both;
>
/* Responsive layout — makes the three columns stack on top of each other instead of next to each other on smaller screens (600px wide or less) */
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) .column width: 100%;
>
>
Column
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.
Column
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.
Column
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique.
Tip: To create a 2-column layout, change the width to 50%. To create a 4-column layout, use 25%, etc.
Tip: Do you wonder how the @media rule works? Read more about it in our CSS Media Queries chapter.
Tip: A more modern way of creating column layouts, is to use CSS Flexbox. However, it is not supported in Internet Explorer 10 and earlier versions. If you require IE6-10 support, use floats (as shown above).
To learn more about the Flexible Box Layout Module, read our CSS Flexbox chapter.
Unequal Columns
The main content is the biggest and the most important part of your site.
It is common with unequal column widths, so that most of the space is reserved for the main content. The side content (if any) is often used as an alternative navigation or to specify information relevant to the main content. Change the widths as you like, only remember that it should add up to 100% in total:
Example
/* Left and right column */
.column.side width: 25%;
>
/* Middle column */
.column.middle width: 50%;
>
/* Responsive layout — makes the three columns stack on top of each other instead of next to each other */
@media screen and (max-width: 600px) .column.side, .column.middle width: 100%;
>
>
Side
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Main Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas sit amet pretium urna. Vivamus venenatis velit nec neque ultricies, eget elementum magna tristique. Quisque vehicula, risus eget aliquam placerat, purus leo tincidunt eros, eget luctus quam orci in velit. Praesent scelerisque tortor sed accumsan convallis.
Side
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Footer
The footer is placed at the bottom of your page. It often contains information like copyright and contact info:
Example
Responsive Website Layout
By using some of the CSS code above, we have created a responsive website layout, which varies between two columns and full-width columns depending on screen width:
Ever heard about W3Schools Spaces? Here you can create your website from scratch or use a template, and host it for free.
HTML Styles — CSS
CSS saves a lot of work. It can control the layout of multiple web pages all at once.
CSS = Styles and Colors
What is CSS?
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is used to format the layout of a webpage.
With CSS, you can control the color, font, the size of text, the spacing between elements, how elements are positioned and laid out, what background images or background colors are to be used, different displays for different devices and screen sizes, and much more!
Tip: The word cascading means that a style applied to a parent element will also apply to all children elements within the parent. So, if you set the color of the body text to «blue», all headings, paragraphs, and other text elements within the body will also get the same color (unless you specify something else)!
Using CSS
CSS can be added to HTML documents in 3 ways:
- Inline — by using the style attribute inside HTML elements
- Internal — by using a element in the section
- External — by using a element to link to an external CSS file
The most common way to add CSS, is to keep the styles in external CSS files. However, in this tutorial we will use inline and internal styles, because this is easier to demonstrate, and easier for you to try it yourself.
Inline CSS
An inline CSS is used to apply a unique style to a single HTML element.
An inline CSS uses the style attribute of an HTML element.
The following example sets the text color of the element to blue, and the text color of the
element to red:
Example
A Blue Heading Internal CSS
An internal CSS is used to define a style for a single HTML page.
An internal CSS is defined in the section of an HTML page, within a element.
The following example sets the text color of ALL the elements (on that page) to blue, and the text color of ALL the
elements to red. In addition, the page will be displayed with a «powderblue» background color:
Example
This is a heading
This is a paragraph.
External CSS
An external style sheet is used to define the style for many HTML pages.
To use an external style sheet, add a link to it in the section of each HTML page:
Example
This is a heading
This is a paragraph.
The external style sheet can be written in any text editor. The file must not contain any HTML code, and must be saved with a .css extension.
Here is what the «styles.css» file looks like:
«styles.css»:
Tip: With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire web site, by changing one file!
CSS Colors, Fonts and Sizes
Here, we will demonstrate some commonly used CSS properties. You will learn more about them later.
The CSS color property defines the text color to be used.
The CSS font-family property defines the font to be used.
The CSS font-size property defines the text size to be used.
Example
Use of CSS color, font-family and font-size properties:
This is a heading
This is a paragraph.
CSS Border
The CSS border property defines a border around an HTML element.
Tip: You can define a border for nearly all HTML elements.
Example
Use of CSS border property:
CSS Padding
The CSS padding property defines a padding (space) between the text and the border.
Example
Use of CSS border and padding properties:
CSS Margin
The CSS margin property defines a margin (space) outside the border.
Example
Use of CSS border and margin properties:
Link to External CSS
External style sheets can be referenced with a full URL or with a path relative to the current web page.
Example
This example uses a full URL to link to a style sheet:
Example
This example links to a style sheet located in the html folder on the current web site:
Example
This example links to a style sheet located in the same folder as the current page:
You can read more about file paths in the chapter HTML File Paths.
Chapter Summary
- Use the HTML style attribute for inline styling
- Use the HTML element to define internal CSS
- Use the HTML element to refer to an external CSS file
- Use the HTML element to store and elements
- Use the CSS color property for text colors
- Use the CSS font-family property for text fonts
- Use the CSS font-size property for text sizes
- Use the CSS border property for borders
- Use the CSS padding property for space inside the border
- Use the CSS margin property for space outside the border
Tip: You can learn much more about CSS in our CSS Tutorial.
HTML Exercises
HTML Style Tags
Tag | Description |
---|---|
Defines style information for an HTML document | |
Defines a link between a document and an external resource |
For a complete list of all available HTML tags, visit our HTML Tag Reference.