If you were to walk into my office right now, you would find a very well used copy of Eric Meyers’, Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition. I began doing web design when HTML was young. I learned the basics and invested in a great WSIWYG editor, Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Over the years, CSS has become essential to good web design. Using CSS is an easy way to make your web design flexible, easy to maintain, and quick to load. Anyone who has played with their Wordpress or Blogger templates can see that you can quickly change the font size on your page throughout your site by changing one item in your main CSS file.

I use Eric Meyer’s book for reference. A lot. There are dog-eared pages and highlighter marks throughout. Even though Dreamweaver has CSS controls built in, I can often find what I need or get a little more information using the book. And since much of my blog design work is done using Notepad (i.e. hand coding), I am constantly looking things up.

Other great CSS books include:

• The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)
• Stylin’ with CSS: A Designer’s Guide (VOICES)
• Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS

Is there a reference source on your desk that is equally loved? Please share!!