• Introduction
• XHTML basics
• XHTML cheat sheet
• Validating XHTML
• CSS basics
• CSS cheat sheet
• Validating CSS
• Steal these layouts
• Thoughts

Validating CSS

Validating your CSS ensures compliance with W3C standards and makes for more consistent rendering in a variety of compliant browsers across platforms.

While error messages aren’t always poetry, the validator provides you with consultation from an (X)HTML and CSS expert for the price of a dirty look.

Common mistakes

To minimize tail-chasing, correct errors and revalidate one problem at a time.

• Match like units (margin {50px 10% 10px 20%})
• Separate multiple declarations with (;) (padding-top: 40px; padding-bottom: 10px)
• Separate multiple selectors with (,) (h1, h2, h3 {border-bottom: 1px solid #000})

Flavors of the validator

The free W3C CSS validator is located at: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

If you wish to validate your CSS offline:
File upload: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-upload.html
Text area: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-text.html.

Validate CSS that is on-line by entering the URL at: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html.