How to use CSS to separate content and design?

A good website always consists of a perfectly structured HTML document and a beautiful design that attracts the user's attention. This kind of website can enhance the overall interactivity of the website and make it more attractive.

When applying styles to our web pages, we use Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS for short. By using CSS, we can make our website beautiful more easily. It distinguishes between the structure of an HTML document and its presentation, which refers to the elements that users see and interact with.

Unlike bland websites created simply using HTML, having a unique and creative style has become a must-have feature for websites.

Merge CSS

We can incorporate CSS into our website in three different ways -

• Inline Styles - When we apply styles to every individual HTML tag, it is called inline styles.

• Embedded Styles - The head tag is contained within the style tag and it looks like the CSS has been merged into the HTML file. Then use the term "embedded style".

• External Styles - This is the most recommended technique for using CSS as it is used to separate CSS from HTML. The HTML content is connected to a CSS file that contains all styling information. Using this styling approach we can attach many CSS files.

By using separate files and grouping similar types of formats into the same attribute, we can significantly reduce the length of the code used. This helps maintain the code because less code makes the bug-finding process easier and greatly enhances the overall readability of the code.

Another advantage of using separate CSS files is that you can reuse the same file as many times as needed; compared to traditional formatting, where you have to repeat the formatting in each page separately. You can reuse the file by importing it or linking the worksheet.

Link files using link tags

As already discussed, we can separate the content (structure) of a web page from its design (formatting and style) by using a .CSS file linked to an HTML document. We can link CSS files to HTML files using the html tag.

We use the link tag to specify how two documents relate to each other. It is an empty element, which means that it neither has any opening or closing tags nor is it a self-closing tag. All the information it needs is stored in its properties. There are many attributes that can be used in link tags, but the ones we need to use are defined below.

• Rel - It is a must-have attribute of the link tag that specifies how the document currently being used is related to the document we are trying to link to. Usually, we just tend to think of stylesheets or favicons as relationships.

• Href - Used to specify the URL of the file to be linked.

The link tag is used in the head tag. Within the same document, each tag can have multiple instances of the link tag; pointing to different files. Given below is the syntax for linking CSS files in HTML using link tags -

Example

Let’s look at an example of using link tags to separate the content and design parts of a web page.

HTML part

   
   


   

      
Example of separating content and design using external styleheet with link tag.
      
External Stylesheet and link tags
      

         Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Ipsam earum eligendi, dignissimos nobis a nam similique animi tenetur expedita  pariatur nulla recusandae repellendus sequi quisquam corporis,  voluptates nisi iure perferendis?
      
   

Use import declaration

We can also use the import statement in CSS to separate content from design. We use this statement whenever we have to import styles stored in separate files. We just need to provide the URL or source path where the CSS file is located within quotes.

We can also choose to use media queries with this statement. This is a flexible statement that also supports cascading of style sheets.

The only thing we need to change when using this to separate design and content is to remove the link tag from the example code above and add the following statement in its place.

The output of the

code will be the same as the output of the example code above.

in conclusion

In summary, CSS is a powerful tool for web designers, allowing them to separate content from design. By using CSS, designers can create a consistent look across multiple websites and devices while keeping content organized and easy to update. With the right understanding of HTML and CSS, any designer can easily leverage this feature to create stunning designs without compromising on usability or accessibility.

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