Learning HTML+CSS

I'm not sure if I could put a timeline on that. It really depends on how fast you learn. A lot of things only come up through experience too. It's important to practice on real sites so you come across real-world problems that need solutions.

Yes, learning all of the code is important. Often people will start from a template (e.g. I often start with a "quick start" template that includes the doctype, meta character encoding, head, body etc.). You still need to understand how those codes work and why they're there. Templates are just a time saver.

I also use a quick template, as Megan mentioned, with the necessary, repetitious items that are present in any HTML page I put together, but for the first few years that I spent coding I would put the pages together piece-by-piece. I think it is important to know what function each element of your HTML page is serving, and going through each page and trying to think of what is needed will help you deal with this, in my opinion. This may not work for you, but it worked for me.

Now that I understand well what is what, I use a template I created for each page so that I have more time to spend on the custom elements.

I agree with the use of basic templates, ie: DOCTYPE, Head section etc.

I also agree with Megan and Kurtis that you will need to fully understand the functions of HTML elements and CSS properties etc.

Here is a great place to learn HTML:
W3C HTML school

As for CSS, I bought a book a while ago (found it a great resource, and still use it now). It is:
"CSS The Missing Manual" by O'Reilly publishing.

Hope it helps

I think the time it takes has to do with how well you learn a particular subject (in this case HTML/CSS), and how well your instructor (website/book) teaches it. I highly recommend "Head First HTML, with CSS and XHTML." It will teach you in a very non-techie way, and give you real world problems and solutions.

I learned HTML and then XHTML about 5 years ago, but in college I had to take an HTML class which used this book. Great book.

Also, w3schools, though it is a little more boring for a non-techie... or even a techie.

I also want to learn HTML/CSS; the w3school is the best site to learn online. It is very helpful to learn practical and theoretical. i use this site to learn PHP.

Best way to learn depends on you really.

I'm not particularly academic, I can and do learn from reading, but most of my learning web dev has been from a mixture. And even then mostly playing with code and seeing what it does on a live site rather than reading.

Studying is of course required from the very start, and then throughout when you need to learn something new or find a particular function or method for something you want to do but don't know how.
Trial and error doesn't really help when you simply don't know any methods or code involved.

Once you know the very basics, make a website without the intention of ever making it live to the public (so there's no pressure on the outcome or time taken). Think how you want it to look, and set about making it.
Then think of another style and layout and make that. Soon you'll have picked up most of the requirements just by testing code and reading up on a few tips.

I think this is how most people learn web dev to be honest. Even at uni or college there has to be a large amount of practical otherwise the text on the paper would mean very little to you.

So a mixture of reading and testing balanced to suit your particular skills/abilities.