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quotes and the <blockquote> element

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From: Keith Parks
Date: Apr 29, 2009 10:25AM

Hi folks.

I was on the verge of chiding a colleague over using a complex
combination of html and css to create fancy quotes as background
images behind a short (maybe 2 sentence), stand-alone quote (as
opposed to an inline quote). My complaint being that there would
therefore be no quote marks in the text flow. But I thought I ought to
read up on it first, and I see that I may be off base in my thinking.
(I also discovered the <q> element.)

So, would the Best Practice for stand-alone quotes be to mark it up as
a <blockquote> and then use css to render the onscreen quote marks?

I assume this would be fine for a screen reader, but it seems
problematic for someone visiting the site with css OFF, or someone
using their own css. (Because here in the Calif. university system,
one of the items on our accessibility checklist is to make sure the
page content makes sense with css off.)

What to do?

******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications

http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
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