if u can consider reading online tutorials, I recommenced w3schools which is free and great for learning basic stuff
Budd, A. 2006. CSS mastery: advanced web standards solutions. USA: Apress. Freeman, E. and Freeman, E. 2005. Head first HTML with CSS & XHTML. USA: O'Reilly. Griffiths, P. 2007. HTML dog: the best-practice guide to XHTML & CSS. USA: New Riders. Those are my 3 recomendations, if your only going for one i'd go for Freeman or Griffiths.
I recommend against w3schools. They are not the W3C, they are not updated, and even have errors. Here are my recommendations (and they are both Sitepoint): Build Your Own Web Site the RIght Way Using HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd. ISBN 0-9752402-9-3 Then, after the first book, get a better handling of CSS as it pertains to positioning: HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS by Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer. ISBN 0-9752402-7-7 I have bought both my Sitepoint books at Amazon because even with international shipping, Amazon is cheaper (though my conscience asks why is Amazon cheaper?). After that, you've got enough basis to start on projects, during which you will run into problems. You then have stuff to ask on forums, or stuff to search on forums, where a number of Crusty Old Guys Who Know Stuff come out of the inky shadows to answer (sometimes contradictorily). That is what worked for me (and, still working on it).
I don't think that a book is the best solution to learn CSS/HTML. I think that you should try to play a little with CSS and HTML and just google for help. This is the best method to learn from my point of view
I'm grateful for the books. Without a solid basis, I wouldn't know what to google for or why something was set up a certain way. In other words, there are rules to why things are and looking at other people's code and writing your own does not teach you that (although you'll certainly learn things doing both). You'll see other people doing things which are either wrong, invalid, unsemantic, or inaccessible to some type of UA and you'd have no clue, say "hey that page looks great" and copy and play with the code. You do not have to spend money to learn, true. But try getting the books at the public library then. But, there are some web sites made by the various members who are "in" on the whole W3C things... 456bereastreet, htmldog, meyerweb, maxdesign.com.au, a list apart, fiftyfoureleven, mezzoblue... brunildo.org and position is everything... But the OP did ask for books. : )
Books are obsolete if you have the internet! You should type in free html tutorial on google and save your money and time. That is how i learned html ... I found a pop up tutor that explains html in 6 hours it was the most informative tutorial i have ever seen and it was free. If you insist on buying a book then get html for dummies they have it on amazon...
just look at google or yahoo, there are a lot of site where you can find books on you taste and simple!
It's hard for me to learn with those big fat books. Here's a good link with some good basic layout links. They help me. http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/css-layout-tools/ Maybe some DP'ers own some of those sites? Jen
I spent months getting absolutely no where with css and html by learning online, you do not learn thoroughly enough in my opinion... I recommend CSS the Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland, this is much better than the patchy sitepoint books
You need some real books. Real books are much more engaging than digital ones which you read while you go on the computer and Internet that constantly distract you. These are the top bestselling HTML books and CSS books at Amazon. I prefer O'Reilly over any other publishers in technical books for learning. Andy Budd has some very good insights on CSS but I'm afraid it's not meant for beginners. One of the most important things you must adhere to is that: TRY everything the books tell you. TRY everything by coding them into a real HTML file and then see the results in these browsers one by one: IE6 (can miss this one), IE7, IE8, FF3, Opera9, Safari3/4 and Google Chrome.
I personally like "Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide To (X)HTML, Stylesheets and Web Graphics" by Jennifer Niederst Robbins.