Benefits of CSS

CSS is flexible

Styles can be written in one place (separate style sheets) and assigned to HTML elements through class or ID properties. It's way easier and quicker to change styles across a whole site when they're defined in one place.

CSS is Lightweight

Using CSS (like class="main-nav") creates far smaller HTML files than writing style into every HTML tags (like border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" backgroundcolor="#ffc").

CSS helps separate style from content

Keeping your style definitions separate from your content and content-structure makes it possible to re-purpose the same content for different media. This includes styling pages differently for printing, as well as other user agents like voice (text-to-speech) and mobile devices.

CSS for Web Design: Contents

Introduction to CSS
Beginner's introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Inheritance and Cascading Styles in CSS
Introduction to how styles apply in CSS through inheritance and cascading.
Block vs Inline display style in CSS
HTML elements can be displayed either in block or inline style. The difference between these is one of the most basic things you need to know in order to use CSS effectively.
Datasheet-style form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Make a datasheet-style web form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Tabular list-style form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Create a tabular list-style web form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Keeping your content in order of priority with flexible CSS layouts.
How to keep your most important content at the top of your page, no matter what kind of column layout you wish to achieve.

Other CSS resources

Style Master CSS tutorial
A very good place to get a broad overview of what CSS is and what you can do with it.
CSS Basics - Understanding Selectors
Easy-to-follow introduction to CSS selectors; how you apply different styles to different things in CSS.
CSS Help pile
A great collection of links to CSS tutorials, ranging from moderate to advanced level
CSS3.com
A thorough reference of CSS properties, with examples.
40 free CSS layouts for you to use
Multi-column, fixed or liquid layout, every combination is here, tried & tested.
Yahoo! UI Library: Grids CSS
(Not for beginners) Grids CSS is a suite of seven web page templates and the ability to nest grids of one to four columns within the content area of those templates. Together, the combined template and grid system enable you to implement over 100 different CSS layouts using only 1.82KB of includes.

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Articles + tutorials in HTML & CSS Production

Overview
Menu of all our articles on HTML, CSS and web page production
CSS
List of our CSS articles
Introduction to CSS
Beginner's introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
HTML
List of HTML articles
Introduction to HTML
Introduction to basic HTML tags and the structure of HTML documents.
How HTML, CSS and JavaScript work together in making web pages
Best practice for using HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript together to make web pages.
Building a web page with HTML + CSS for complete beginners
Learn what HTML is and how to build a website from scratch. A guide to creating a web page using HTML and CSS for people with no prior knowledge
Block vs Inline display style in CSS
HTML elements can be displayed either in block or inline style. The difference between these is one of the most basic things you need to know in order to use CSS effectively.
Inheritance and Cascading Styles in CSS
Introduction to how styles apply in CSS through inheritance and cascading.
HTML Lists
The basics of lists: unordered, ordered and definition lists covered.
HTML Tables
The basics of tables. When to use tables, and how to do it. Includes tips on colspan and rowspan properties, and the col and colgroup tags.
Anatomy of HTML tags
Describes the common attributes that can feature in your HTML tags.
Introduction to Semantic HTML
Explains what semantic HTML, or semantically-correct HTML, is and how it benefits web development.
Semantic HTML Handbook - Benefits of Writing Semantic HTML (Nov 15 2009)
Free article on Semantic HTML. Why you should learn Semantic HTML. Benefits for SEO and code reuse explained.
Complete List of HTML/xHTML Tags, With Guide to Proper Semantic Use (Nov 15 2009)
My Complete List of HTML/xHTML Tags, With Guide to their Proper Semantic Use
A Few Tips and Tricks to Write Better Semantic HTML (Nov 15 2009)
Tips and tricks for writing better semantic HTML or xHTML from a professional web producer
Web Page Production using xHTML and CSS (ebook)
This new 61-page ebook provides a worked example of web production, taking you through the entire process from a Photoshop page design, to a working HTML page template.
Datasheet-style form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Make a datasheet-style web form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Tabular list-style form using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Create an appealing tabular list using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Complete HTML tag reference
Our complete guide to HTML and xHTML tags, and their proper usage.
Keeping your content in order of priority with flexible CSS layouts
This article shows you how to use CSS floats to achieve any column layout, while keeping your most important content highest on the page.