HTML Basics
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Style sheets

Future versions of HTML (and the browsers that support them) are expected to provide a mechanism by which authors can communicate there intentions about how the elements of their documents are intended to be presented. Although the details of how this will work have not been settled, it is likely that "style sheets" will be involved. Style sheets (in this context) are auxilliary documents in which an author can suggest a suitable rendering for each element in a document (or group of documents). For example, an author might specify that ordinary text be rendered in a proportional font, perhaps specifying something specific, say, Times Roman, 14 point) while block quotes are meant to be presented in a smaller size italic, indented and set off form the body of a paragraph by a blank line before and after.

The style sheet mechanism will give the author some measure of "authority" over the presentation of his/her text, without disrupting the device-independent character of HTML. The style sheet provides the reader (and his/her browsing software) clear guidelines about how the author intended the work to be presented, without restricting the reader's ability to use the work in ways not forseen by the author.

The reader will probably also be able to use style sheets, either to accept or to override the author's recommendations. For example, a reader with poor eyesight might apply his/her own style sheet to change the default type size for ordinary text to, say, 18 point and adjust other elements accordingly. Similarly, a reader with a display that does a poor job of rendering italics might choose to make all emphasized text bold, or bright red. If documents are to be printed, a separatel style sheet might be applied to make effective use of the printer's capabilities.

Further readings

At this time, it seems likely that the implementation of HTML style will be based on a developing standard known as DSSSL-Lite, which is derived from an SGML-related standard DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language, ISO/IEC DIS 10179.2). For non-technical discussion of some of the ways HTML might evolve, see C. M. Sperberg-McQueen and Robert F. Goldstein's" "HTML to the Max--A Manifesto for Adding SGML Intelligence to the World-Wide Web, and Håkon W Lie's HTML Style Sheets