When I first wrote about using CSS for layouts six years ago, I focused on CSS positioning. After all, isn't that really what layout is all about? Precisely defining exactly where every element on your page should show up seemed, at the time, to be exactly what we all were looking for in Web design. Of course, the Web is not print, and trying to be pixel-perfect in every situation is a requirement guaranteed to rip the hair of the heads of any designer striving to reach it. So, now, when I work with layouts, I think about blocks of content and imagine them floating around on my page. And the CSS float property helps me to design pages that way. But it won't help you if you don't know how to use it.

• Understanding CSS Float