CSS Reset
Most good CSS developers start their stylesheets with a bit of reset code to bring some of the individual browser quirks to a standard imposed by the developer. Eric Meyer has published his over the weekend which covers just about every contengency. I prefer to only reset the items that are used in my sheets, so tables would not likely be needed. Andy Clark has a good illustration of this techinque in his book, Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design
The tip I recently discovered and was re-affirmed by Eric’s CSS reset, is the reset of the image tag. Control the border, padding, and spacing around the images for the entire document.
a img, :link img, :visited img {border: 0;}
In addition to Eric Meyer’s list are some standard classes that I like to use at the beginning of my stylesheets:
.right (float: right; margin-left: 5px;}
.left (float: left; margin-right: 5px;}
.center (text-align: center;}
.bordered (1px solid #000); /* a border where ever needed */
.clear(clear: both; height: 1px; width: 100%;)
.box50{width: 50%} /* used with a p, div, or span tag and sometimes floated left or right.
Having standard stylesheets as starting points can save you a lot of initial development time. Almost all web standards sites will utilize similar structures which can be built with containers and their appearance and position controlled by CSS. After you have built 10+ sites the patterns begin to refine themselves and you look for these time saving tips.