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I am having some issues with using Bootstrap for the first time. For some reason no matter what changes I make to my custom css it does not affect the bootstrap css or the regular html of the layout. I am currently trying to build my first website in visual studio and have been advised to work with bootstrap however I cannot seem to get it to work the way I want it to. I have successfully created web elements that I want without the use of bootstrap however when I try to use bootstrap it just does not want to display any of my custom css no matter what I do.

As I stated above, the first thing I tried was editing the bootstrap css directly, which had absolutely no effect on the layout of my webpages. After this, I discovered it was a good idea to create a seperate main.css file and then link it in to bootstrap file, with any changes being made to the main.css file should change the bootstrap css without having to mess up the bootstrap file. However, using this method none of the changes alter the way the webpages are displayed in any way. After this, I decided to follow this tutorial https://websitesetup.org/bootstrap-tutorial-for-beginners/ step by step, even though it is a notepad++ tutorial and not a visual studio tutorial. Even following this tutorial step by step none of the changes made to the css are displayed on the webpage.

When I simply add the html I want to the layout page without linking the bootstrap or main.css to the layout page the features work as intended, but I cannot customize some things with html so I need to get it working with css.

I have done a few google searches for solutions to this issue and tried several, such as moving code from the body of the layout page to the footer, ensuring the file directory for the .css files is correct, including capital letters, but I cannot seem to find where the issue is.

This is how I linked my layout page to the main.css file which contains the css for altering the nav bar of my webpages: