10+ Best HTML/CSS Books for Beginners and Advanced Coders

So, without further ado, here’s the complete guide to the 11 best HTML/CSS books (in no specific order).

1. HTML and CSS: The Comprehensive Guide – by Jürgen Wolf

First on our list is one of the newest entries into the field. Released just last year, this is a book of epic proportions. Filled with over 800 pages of expert knowledge about HTML and CSS, and also containing an intro to JavaScript, author and web developer, Jürgen Wolf, leaves no stone unturned.

If you’re a blogger or a content creator, this book will help you keep your pages up to date with easy-to-follow guidance about HTML and CSS.

For those who’ve worked with previous versions of HTML and want to understand its role in modern websites, then this book is indispensable. In contemporary web design, HTML is primarily used for structuring content, while styling and layout are handled by CSS. This book focuses on how to effectively use both of them for a more sophisticated, standards-compliant approach.

2. Murach’s HTML and CSS: Training & Reference 5th Edition

The latest edition of Murach’s HTML and CSS guidebook was released in 2022, making the advice extremely relevant to modern web design. Whether you’re a web designer, a server-side programmer, a JavaScript programmer, or a total beginner, this book will give you all the tools you need to do your work.

The first eight chapters consist of a hands-on course that gives you a strong foundation in both HTML and CSS, including how it’s being used in today’s web development landscape. The course wraps up with a chapter that demonstrates how to use fluid design and media queries to implement Responsive Web Design. Knowing how to do this is crucial so that your website pages will load properly and function well on any size device. After this, there are all sorts of more advanced topics you can explore to expand your knowledge even further.

3. HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites – by Jon Duckett

Next up, we’ve got an Amazon bestseller by Jon Duckett, a renowned web designer and developer with over two decades of experience.

In this book, he tries to make HTML/CSS less intimidating by using simple but colorful infographics and screenshots to illustrate otherwise complex concepts. The layout itself is satisfyingly minimalistic, and you should have an easy time following along from cover to cover.

Overall, the book covers all the basics of HTML/CSS. You get to learn how to build a website from scratch, how to work with the languages on both macOS and PC, as well as how to design various website elements. Mr. Duckett has even included well-labeled screenshots of the text editor, showing the code examples in their original colors.

4. Head First HTML and CSS: A Learner’s Guide to Creating Standards-Based Web Pages – by Elisabeth Robson & Eric Freeman

If you’re tired of all the technical jargon in HTML/CSS forums and tutorials, this is the book for you. Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson collaborated to create a one-of-a-kind book that explains pretty much everything about static web page construction in a simplistic manner.

Instead of giving you the information in huge technical chunks, the book walks you through the principles just like a teacher would in an actual classroom. It systematically and incrementally reveals how you can apply HTML/CSS to all your web pages – while, at the same time, providing relevant graphics as guidance.

5. A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS: Learn it faster. Remember it longer – by Mark Myers

In “A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS: Learn it faster. Remember it longer”, Mark Myers takes the learning process a notch higher by including interactive exercises. Instead of just reading about HTML/CSS, you also get to practice everything online.

Sounds confusing? Okay, this is how it works. At the end of every chapter, the book directs you to a practice site where you’ll find questions in the form of interactive exercises. You’re supposed to answer everything correctly before proceeding. And in case you enter an incorrect answer, the system will redirect you to the question until you get it right.

6. Get Coding!: Learn HTML, CSS & JavaScript & Build a Website, App & Game – by Young Rewired State

If you’re in the market for the best HTML/CSS books for kids, you might want to check this one out. The book itself is authored by Young Rewired State, a global tech community composed of teens and kids. And yes – that’s precisely the same audience it targets.

Now, the good thing about this book is, it doesn’t stop at HTML/CSS. Rather, it goes beyond that by additionally helping kids with JavaScript coding.

Also, you’ll notice that the text used is simple enough for even eight-year-olds to understand. The book walks them through the three programming languages from scratch, before gradually transitioning to the tough topics. By the end of it all, the readers should have developed the basic skills for building websites, games, and apps using CSS, HTML and JavaScript.

7. Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics – by Jennifer Robins

Imagine learning HTML/CSS from the most experienced web designers in the world. Well, that’s precisely what you get from this book.

You see, Jennifer Robins has been building websites since 1993. That alone makes her one of the very few pioneers in web design, and one of the most experienced veterans on the globe.

And so, by reading this book, you can bet that you’ll be gaining decades-worth of insights into not only HTML/CSS, but also JavaScript. These are the three core languages that you’ll need to build a modern website.

Now, to be specific, the book shows you how to set up HTML pages with forms, tables, images, links, and text. Then when it comes to CSS, you get to find out how to apply it to animation effects, page layouts, text formatting, backgrounds, colors, and so forth.

Once armed with this knowledge, you be perfectly placed to complete your knowledge stack through the best PHP books.

8. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript All in One: Covering HTML5, CSS3, and ES6, Sams Teach Yourself – by Julie C. Meloni and Jennifer Kyrin

Speaking of HTML/CSS and JavaScript, another comprehensive resource for both beginners and advanced coders is Meloni and Kyrin’s “HTML, CSS, and JavaScript All in One”. You can think of it as the ultimate guide that’ll get you started with the three fundamental web development languages.

Basically, the book explains just how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together in contemporary web development, and then proceeds to provide well-organized step-by-step tutorials on how to leverage the three technologies simultaneously.

You’ll even find HTML5, CSS3, and ECMAScript 6 principles expertly integrated into each chapter. This is intended to teach you how to apply them to various contexts of web design.

9. HTML and CSS QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginners Guide to Developing a Strong Coding Foundation, Building Responsive Websites, and Mastering … of Modern Web Design – by David Durocher

Quite the title, I must admit. But, I guess that’s understandable considering all the stuff that David Durocher covers in the book.

Apart from HTML and CSS basics, you’ll find helpful notes on CSS styling, CSS elements, and HTML tags, as well as step-by-step tutorials on how to fit everything together to form an adequately responsive website.

You will, for instance, learn how to design, structure, and organize website gradients, sprites, forms, multimedia, images, fonts, and formatting. What’s more, the book provides insights into markup best practices, plus relevant practical examples of how to debug and update websites.

10.Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS: Develop future-proof responsive websites using the latest HTML5 and CSS techniques – by Ben Frain

When it comes to UI design, you might want to get yourself Ben Frain’s “Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS“. It happens to be one of the few best HTML/CSS books that exhaustively discusses user interface responsiveness across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

Right from the first page, the author engages readers in a relaxed and non-formal tone, while he walks them through all the HTML/CSS elements that affect website usability. You will, for instance, find chapters dedicated to CSS Grid, CSS Scroll Snap, font loading, variable fonts, user accessibility, plus much more.

It doesn’t stop there, though. The book provides further tips on developing animations, transformations, transitions, grid layouts, media queries, and other CSS front-end customizations.

11. CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web – by Eric A. Meyer

As you start getting used to working with CSS, you might find yourself stuck from time to time. To help you when that happens, last on our list of books is Eric Meyer’s “CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web.” It comes in real handy.

You can think of this as a quick reference guide, created specifically for intermediate to advanced web developers and designers. It provides answers to all the common queries about key CSS concepts, properties, and selectors. That includes even the latest trends on composing, filtering, masking, flexbox, clipping, animations, etc.

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