You can define and modify style definitions in external style sheets or inside an HTML page. Precedence rules govern how your document appears when the browser finds overlapping style definitions. Styles for the same element might be defined in any of the following (listed inversely to the order of precedence as defined for the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser):
External style sheets store style definitions in separate files external to HTML pages. These files are also known as cascading style sheets because styles can be defined at different levels, with a browser's interpretation of the styles cascading from one level to another.
Embedded styles can be used to create new styles for HTML elements or to modify the appearance of styles from style definitions in an external style sheet. The new or modified styles are included in a STYLE element tag that you add to the Head section of an HTML page.
Inline styles can be used to create new styles for HTML elements or to modify the appearance of embedded and external styles. You define inline styles as style attributes of elements on an HTML page.
Classes and IDs can have styles of their own. These styles are linked to particular objects and classes, not to particular elements.
Scripts can modify any style. With recent versions of HTML, any style on a page is considered an object. The Style Sheet editor lets you create style objects associated with IDs. For information about the Script editor, see Chapter 6, “Writing Scripts.”
