'Style' for those who can't wait!

This is your style file. Whatever you do, do not change the format of the file. By this, is meant: the curly brackets, the hash sign (#), the full stop, the colons and the semi-colons.

body {
   background-color: #ffffaa;
   color: #000099;
   margin-left: 5%;
   font-family: Arial, verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
   font-size: small;
}
.cen {
   height: auto;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   text-align: center;
}

'body' and '.cen' are known as selectors. 'body' refers to the body tag. in other words these style rules apply to the whole page. The '.cen' on the other hand applies where you see the attribute 'class="cen"'. 'cen' is a made up name (short for centre). Once you feel happy with it, try making some small changes, so that you get a better feel for style.

All the other lines are 'rules' each comprising a 'property' and a 'value'.

Let's go through it one rule (or more) at a time.

• 'background-color' refers to the colour of the background. In this form the color value is in the form of a hash sign followed by three two-digit hexadecimal numbers! When you're ready, click here for more on style color and here for more on hexadecimal numbers.
• 'color' refers to the colour of the text. If you specify one of these two, you should specify both!
• 'margin-left' is given so that the text does not butt up against the left-hand side of the window.
• 'font-family' allows you to specify one or more fonts. If the user does not have the first font on the list, the browser will look for the second and so on. That's why the list ends with a generic font.
• The 'height' of a 'cen' object specified as being automatic.
• The 'margin-left' and 'margin-right' are also automatic (and the same), thus centreing the 'cen' object.
• Centreing also applies to text.

Notes

Take a careful note of the American spelling of 'color' and 'center'. When you start writing web pages it is one of the most frequent spelling 'mistakes'.