Being new to web design, I seek out as much information on the subject as I can lay my hands and eyes on. I acquired The CSS Anthology by Rachel Andrew through a raffle at my local Digital Media Artist's Group meeting. The CSS Anthology reference book was helpful in that it broke down the subject matter into parts, such as CSS Positioning, Layouts, and Tabular Data; these are some of the areas in which have presented me with much angst in the past. I describe this anthology as a "reference" book because of its compartmentalization, and how it utilizes assorted CSS design tools, tips, and tricks to make it easy to understand when confronting stumbling blocks when creating web pages. There are occasions when the amount of information to create web pages and coding CSS can be overwhelming. In possessing a "quick-guide" such as this text, in lieu of a massive "CSS Bible", helps to pinpoint possible solutions more quickly and effectively.

Though this edition is six-years old, updated in 2005, it remains a great help for beginners in understanding the basics of the CCS concepts. The CSS Anthology is a good reference guide for intermediate designers as well, in that it helps those designers who may not quite be experts, to review and hone in on the specifics of style-sheet coding until it becomes second nature. At the time of this revised edition, CS3 Dreamweaver was the most current version of web designing application offered by Adobe that I utilized. Because of this, I am not sure if all of the code examples offered in this book are still relevant in the newer versions of the current web design applications. Moreover, have these codes been deprecated, or are they still supported by all browsers in their most up-to-date versions? I am keen to the coding examples that are clearly laid out; though disappointed that some of examples are not in color to correspond to the text in the book.

I found the book helpful in understanding particular facets of web design; such as fixed or liquid layouts, and absolute versus relative positioning. I came across aspects of web design that have vexed me in the past, like how to create multiple style sheets; ones for print, another for aural, and yet another for handheld devices. Another problem was how to create tables for tabular-data, data that may be imported in from other formats, such as Excel. The straightforward examples given here were refreshingly concise and easy to follow. There were other elements that I found useful, such as the use of "wrappers", or "content" dividers, which will make any of my future design projects less complicated. I was not aware for instance, that you could also use "div-wrappers" more than once on a page, tables also for that matter; the perils and pitfalls of inexperience.

In conclusion, reference-texts such as The CSS Anthology can help to fill in those gaps in your skill-set, or remind you of tools, tips, tricks, and hacks that have been forgotten. I intend to keep this reference guide close at hand, as well as acquire the latest editions from Rachel Andrew, for a quick reference when confronting web designer's block.