Abstract. Web archive 2004 - 2010

Dealing with browser inconsistencies often makes up a majority of the work for a web designer. Sometimes there is no reasonable way to accomplish a desired layout in all major web browsers without the use of some special exception rules for certain layout engines. Hacks necessarily lead to potential complications and should be avoided whenever possible, but when the circumstances require hacks to be used, it’s best to know what your options are and weigh the consequences appropriately. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the CSS hacks, also called CSS filters, with the least significant potential consequences.

1. Conditional comments
   1. Syntax
   2. Fixing stand-alone versions of Internet Explorer
   3. Conditional comments as a CSS hack
2. In-CSS hacks
   1. Easy selectors
   2. Minimized attribute selectors
   3. !important
   4. @import "non-ie.css" all;
   5. body[class|="page-body"]
3. Unrecommended hacks
   1. _property: value and -property: value
   2. *property: value
   3. body:empty
   4. a:link:visited, a:visited:link
   5. >body
   6. html*
   7. !ie
   8. !important!

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