HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible [Paperback]

The title is misguiding. It's everything but an HTML, XHTML & CSS Bible. Title should read "Become a webmaster in a month". I expected to have:
- The full HTML Specification with an example for each definition
- Same for XHTML (DTD, rules to respect, validation, etc...)
- Same for CSS and *PLEASE*, at least the basics of tableless CSS layout
If the book were to expose the aforementioned information, it would exceed the 800 pages, and the author wouldn't have had to put some more information that is useful, I agree, but it's off-topic, sorry. The author should stress a lot more on standards. Standards are important, and one can't call a book a "Bible" if it only covers 75% of HTML, 50% of XHTML and hardly covers basics of CSS.
It lacks information on the PNG file format (open source). Mention of the Opera Browser is almost non-existent, even if it's the most standard-compliant browser. Using tables to create a layout is old-fashioned and many good books (by Dan Cederholm, Jeffrey Zeldman or Eric Meyer) proove that one should *NOT* use tables for layout so that structure and content are clearly seperated from presentation. Without this discipline, the web won't be able to evolve toward XML.
The book talks about image retouching, which again is off-topic, pretty much like SMIL, multimedia, FTP, maintainance, databases, weblogs, PHP & MySQL.
I noticed several errors, and then I stopped writing them down. These are some of them:
- p.93 PNG, is stored without being compressed doesn't loose color or image quality, and does support transparency. At least this can be achieved in Photoshop CS.
- p.108 I find it sad that the author doesn't show how image maps are done with circles and polygons
- chap.9 "Special characters" should show a sample for every single entity
- p.184 The author puts the e-mail address into the code. How is it possible?! With all the spam problems people keep complaining, how come the author doesn't display the e-mail address thanks to a javascript to hide it from spambots?
- p.188 in Part III instead of in Part II
- p.210 He forgot that the label tag can nest the radio button and the text without ID.
- p.284 div.div1 table should read div.div1>table
- All examples are shown in IE or Netscape 4. Why not show modern browsers (Opera 7.8, Mozilla 1.8, Firefox 1.0)
- p.379 user agent is not Opera but Firebird
This is not a bad book, it has a lot of useful information, but what drove me nuts is that I wanted a "Bible" for these 3 languages. I had to buy other books. I hope now people who buy this book know it's a general-purpose book on web design.

If you are an experienced coder looking for an strict HTML, XHTML, or CSS reference, I suggest you move on to another title. If you are a novice in HTML using a WYSIWYG editor and want to start getting into the HTML code itself, then this is a good book for you. I bought this book to refresh myself in HTML, and CSS being away from it for several years. I program in VB and VC++ and have many programming references that are excellent and very concise. Unfortunately this book is neither. The writers persistently wander off on long winded tangents that seem to ramble on and on.... and on! The analogies had me scratching my head wondering just what exactly the comparative <sp> was? There are many small chapters in the last half of the book that are nothing but fluff and offer no real information.
In closing, there is useful information in this book for the novice. However it is not complete or in any particular order. Happy hunting.

I have used this book as a textbook for an "Introduction to HTML" class I taught. I looked at several references prior to choosing on one, and this was by far the best formatted and most appropriate for those with little to no existing knowledge of HTML.

The previous reviewer's complaints are mostly unfounded, in my opinion. The appendix contains a more or less comprehensive listing of all HTML tags and their usage, etc. The chapters are well organized, easy to read, and comprehensive. If this book spreads itself a little thin at times trying to cover so much ground, it is necessary due to the inherently connected nature of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. Covering only HTML would not be useful for beginners who want to gain a basic understanding of these technologies. I assume the "HTML 4 Bible" by the same publisher is more what the previous reviewer was probably looking for.

I highly recomend this book to anyone wishing to learn HTML.

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