WebAssist with its release of Eric Meyer's CSS Sculptor tool Thursday is looking to make using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) easier for Adobe Dreamweaver users.

Developers on the Dreamweaver platform for creating Web sites can use CSS Sculptor to build Web standards-compliant CSS-based layouts, WebAssist said. The product was developed by WebAssist in partnership with CSS expert Eric Meyer.

CSS separates content from presentation and is used to present content, said Joseph Lowery, vice president of marketing for WebAssist. CSS is relied on for better cross-browser compatibility and user accessibility.

"Where the problem is and where the challenge is, is creating these types of layout is often very challenging for beginning designers and also for application designers who are not that savvy with building Web pages by themselves or doing it in this format," Lowery said.

What CSS Sculptor does is provide a set of 30 presentation layouts, which can be customized. Users could, for example, add more columns to a layout or change the Web page size or position.

"It creates all the CSS for you," Lowery said. "Otherwise, you would have to hand-code it."

CSS Sculptor provides a "good start" for those delving into CSS layout, said user Murray Summers, president of Great Web Sites, a Web site design firm near Philadelphia.

"It has a user interface that gives you some options that I haven't seen in other similar products," Summers said.

"What CSS Sculptor does is it lets the individual who's still stuck on ground zero on how to get beyond just using CSS to make text pink (for example)," Sommers said. Users gain a way of using CSS to build a page layout, he said.

The interface on CSS Sculptor displays the structure of CSS markup in a tree-like control. Users can select any layout component in the layout tree, WebAssist said. Modified designs can be saved as a new layout.

Eric Meyer's CSS Sculptor retails for $149.99 and is available now for a special introductory price of $99 through September 6 at the WebAssist Web site. The product is compatible with Dreamweaver CS3 and Dreamweaver 8 on Windows and Macintosh.