Three styles of cascading style sheets (CSS), external, embedded, and inline

There are three styles of cascading style sheets (CSS), external, embedded, and inline. An external cascading sheet which is also referred to as a “linked style sheet” is used when one wants to apply the same styles consistently across all pages. The advantage of external cascading sheets allows one who is designing a website with a consistent look to set headings and captions the same. Instead of providing a code for each header or caption, it will apply throughout the entire website. This saves one a lot of time. The downfall of external cascading sheets is the increase in down load time. According to Kyrin (2012), “Every time you create a new CSS file and link or import it into your document that requires the web browser make another call to the web server to get the file. And server calls slow down page load times (p. 7)”.
Embedded cascading sheets are used to define a style for a current page. The advantage of embedded cascading sheets is that one does not have to add to add an attribute to each pararagraph. One can style them all with one definition.
Inline cascade sheets can be applied to individual elements on a page. Inline cascading sheets are recommended for use on websites with more than one page. Inline cascading sheets are easy to salvage and maintain. The disadvantage of inline cascading sheets is the disorganized layout in HTML. Although there are many options when applying CSS to HTML documents, one has to find the one most suitable to assist when maintaining one’s website.