Formatting with styles and style sheets

Style sheets provide a way to define a full array of layout specifications for HTML topics such as font style and size, line spacing, paragraph indents, and more. Similar to templates used by Microsoft Word and other programs, a style sheet is a template that controls the formatting of topics. You can alter the appearance of a topic by changing the formatting assigned to it from a style sheet.

Style sheets enable you to maintain consistency among your topics. You can share them with other authors so your projects have a familiar look and follow your company's design standards. In addition to attaching topics to style sheets, you can also assign styles within topics and reuse them (embedded styles) and assign styles to paragraphs and characters within topics on an individual basis (inline styles).

There are three ways to work with style sheets and styles:

Note: There is a hierarchy among these styles when they are used in combination. For details, see About cascading style sheets.