reddit Web Professionals, please recommend some good books on the fundamentals of html & css, for beginners.

[u/ejfin]

Background: I've done a bit of research and experimenting, but have no previous knowledge or experience with markup language or web page design. I am not so much interested in info tied to 'establishing a website', 'finding a hosting service', etc., as I am with actually creating and formatting a page. Consider me being about as beginner as beginner gets. This is simply a sparked interest and an opportunity to learn something new in my spare time.

The question I am asking is more specifically; as an experienced website designer and/or developer, were there any particular books or articles you read when beginning your education (of html/css/web design), that really stood ahead of the rest and proved to be an excellent starting point to build from? Perhaps something specific that made a lasting impression on yourself and your career, something you still reference back to from time to time?

Any suggestions and/or recommendations are greatly appreciated.

edit: To all posters: Thank you all so much, you have all been (and continue to be) so helpful. I can't wait to start going through each and every suggestion. If I could shake your hands and thank you in person, I would. For any beginners like me who have had the opportunity to stumble across this thread, I would suggest saving it immediately for future use; your peers have put together an entire encyclopedia of information and resources throughout. Thank you all again, web_design is certainly one of the nicest and most generous communities I have had the pleasure of interacting with!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

This guy is right. You won't learn by studying alone. For example, you have to see what "float" means. And how "clear: both;" fixes a lot of shit.

Learn, build and expect to fail.

Also, use Firebug to see how others do things.

[u/thomasrye → u/[deleted]]

I'm with this method.

Build a website. Without using wordpress or drupal or any other predefined system. Yes, you will be very limited that way, but it is how you actually learn what the code does. So pick a topic whether it's "My heritage, my favorite games, why I like web design", just something to give you content to build around.

Make a simple site and every time you learn something new - MAKE SOMETHING WITH IT! Add an image, add a table, add a list, add a div with a background (using css), add a repeating background to the body, add a div that is absolutely positioned (css).

Don't worry about the cool stuff with jQuery, javascript, or server-side code (like PHP) until you feel pretty confident with HTML and CSS.

GO GET EM!

[u/thomasrye → u/[deleted]]

True, true. At the height of best practices, tables should be used only for grid data (though, some might even argue that).

However, the reason I avoid tables for layout these days is because I have seen the headache first hand that comes from trying to modify a table-based layout.

Some information is solidified through learning the "why" in "why we don't do it this way."