CSS Example
CSS Example
HTML / XHTML
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What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets Styles define how to display HTML elements Styles were added to HTML 4.0 to solve a problem External Style Sheets can save a lot of work External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files
CSS Demo
An HTML document can be displayed with different styles: See how it works
HTML was intended to define the content of a document, like: <h1>This is a heading</h1> <p>This is a paragraph.</p> When tags like <font>, and color attributes were added to the HTML 3.2 specification, it started a nightmare for web developers. Development of large web sites, where fonts and color information were added to every single page, became a long and expensive process. To solve this problem, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created CSS. In HTML 4.0, all formatting could be removed from the HTML document, and stored in a separate CSS file. All browsers support CSS today.
CSS Syntax
A CSS rule has two main parts: a selector, and one or more declarations:
The selector is normally the HTML element you want to style. Each declaration consists of a property and a value. The property is the style attribute you want to change. Each property has a value.
CSS Example
CSS declarations always ends with a semicolon, and declaration groups are surrounded by curly brackets: p {color:red;text-align:center;} To make the CSS more readable, you can put one declaration on each line, like this:
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> p { color:blue; text-align:center; } </style> </head> <body> <p>Hello World!</p> <p>This paragraph is styled with CSS.</p> </body> </html> Try it yourself
CSS Comments
Comments are used to explain your code, and may help you when you edit the source code at a later date. Comments are ignored by browsers. A CSS comment begins with "/*", and ends with "*/", like this:
/*This is a comment*/ p { text-align:center; /*This is another comment*/ color:black; font-family:arial; }
The id Selector
The id selector is used to specify a style for a single, unique element. The id selector uses the id attribute of the HTML element, and is defined with a "#". The style rule below will be applied to the element with id="para1":
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> #para1 { text-align:center; color:red; } </style> </head>
<body> <p id="para1">Hello World!</p> <p>This paragraph is not affected by the style.</p> </body>
When a browser reads a style sheet, it will format the document according to it.
An external style sheet can be written in any text editor. The file should not contain any html tags. Your style sheet should be saved with a .css extension. An example of a style sheet file is shown below:
hr {color:sienna;} p {margin-left:20px;} body {background-image:url("images/back40.gif");}
Do not leave spaces between the property value and the units! "margin-left:20 px" (instead of "margin-left:20px") will work in IE, but not in Firefox or Opera.
Inline Styles
An inline style loses many of the advantages of style sheets by mixing content with presentation. Use this method sparingly! To use inline styles you use the style attribute in the relevant tag. The style attribute can contain any CSS property. The example shows how to change the color and the left margin of a paragraph:
<p style="color:sienna;margin-left:20px">This is a paragraph.</p>
And an internal style sheet has these properties for the h3 selector:
h3 { text-align:right; font-size:20pt; }
If the page with the internal style sheet also links to the external style sheet the properties for h3 will be:
color:red; text-align:right; font-size:20pt;
The color is inherited from the external style sheet and the text-alignment and the font-size is replaced by the internal style sheet.
inside an HTML element inside the head section of an HTML page in an external CSS file
Tip: Even multiple external style sheets can be referenced inside a single HTML document.
Cascading order
What style will be used when there is more than one style specified for an HTML element? Generally speaking we can say that all the styles will "cascade" into a new "virtual" style sheet by the following rules, where number four has the highest priority:
1. 2. 3. 4. Browser default External style sheet Internal style sheet (in the head section) Inline style (inside an HTML element)
So, an inline style (inside an HTML element) has the highest priority, which means that it will override a style defined inside the <head> tag, or in an external style sheet, or in a browser (a default value). Note: If the link to the external style sheet is placed after the internal style sheet in HTML <head>, the external style sheet will override the internal style sheet!
CSS Styling
CSS background properties are used to define the background effects of an element.
Background Color
The background-color property specifies the background color of an element. The background color of a page is defined in the body selector:
Example
body { background-color:#b0c4de; } </style> </head> <body> Try it yourself The background color can be specified by:
name - a color name, like "red" RGB - an RGB value, like "rgb(255,0,0)" Hex - a hex value, like "#ff0000"
In the example below, the h1, p, and div elements have different background colors:
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> h1 { background-color:#6495ed; }
p { background-color:#e0ffff; } div { background-color:#b0c4de; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>CSS background-color example!</h1> <div> This is a text inside a div element. <p>This paragraph has it's own background color.</p> We are still in the div element. </div> </body> </html> Try it yourself
Background Image
The background-image property specifies an image to use as the background of an element. By default, the image is repeated so it covers the entire element. The background image for a page can be set like this:
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> body { background-image:url('paper.gif'); } </style> </head>
<body> <h1>Hello World!</h1> </body> </html> Try it yourself Below is an example of a bad combination of text and background image. The text is almost not readable:
Example
body {background-image:url('bgdesert.jpg');} Try it yourself
Example
body { background-image:url('gradient2.png'); } Try it yourself If the image is repeated only horizontally (repeat-x), the background will look better:
Example
body { background-image:url('gradient2.png'); background-repeat:repeat-x; }
Try it yourself
Example
body { background-image:url('img_tree.png'); background-repeat:no-repeat; } Try it yourself In the example above, the background image is shown in the same place as the text. We want to change the position of the image, so that it does not disturb the text too much. The position of the image is specified by the background-position property:
Example
body { background-image:url('img_tree.png'); background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:right top; } Try it yourself
Example
body { background:#ffffff url('img_tree.png') no-repeat right top; margin-right:200px; } Try it yourself
background
background-attachment
background-color
background-image background-position
1 1
background-repeat
center center center bottom x% y% xpos ypos inherit repeat repeat-x Sets if/how a background image repeat-y will be repeated no-repeat inherit
Text Color
The color property is used to set the color of the text. The color can be specified by:
name - a color name, like "red" RGB - an RGB value, like "rgb(255,0,0)" Hex - a hex value, like "#ff0000"
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> body {color:red;}
<body> <h1>This is heading 1</h1> <p>This is an ordinary paragraph. Notice that this text is red. The default text-color for a page is defined in the body selector.</p> <p class="ex">This is a paragraph with class="ex". This text is blue.</p> </body> </html> Try it yourself
For W3C compliant CSS: If you define the color property, you must also define the background-color property.
Text Alignment
The text-align property is used to set the horizontal alignment of a text. Text can be centered, or aligned to the left or right, or justified. When text-align is set to "justify", each line is stretched so that every line has equal width, and the left and right margins are straight (like in magazines and newspapers).
Example
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> h1 {text-align:center;}
<body> <h1>CSS text-align Example</h1> <p class="date">May, 2009</p> <p class="main">In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'</p> <p><b>Note:</b> Try to resize the browser window to see how justify works.</p> </body>
Text Decoration
The text-decoration property is used to set or remove decorations from text. The text-decoration property is mostly used to remove underlines from links for design purposes:
Example
a {text-decoration:none;} Try it yourself
Example
h1 h2 h3 h4 {text-decoration:overline;} {text-decoration:line-through;} {text-decoration:underline;} {text-decoration:blink;}
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> h1 {text-decoration:overline;} h2 {text-decoration:line-through;} h3 {text-decoration:underline;} h4 {text-decoration:blink;} </style> </head> <body> <h1>This is heading 1</h1> <h2>This is heading 2</h2> <h3>This is heading 3</h3> <h4>This is heading 4</h4> <p><b>Note:</b> The "blink" value is not supported in IE, Chrome, or Safari.</p> </body>
</html>
Try it yourself
It is not recommended to underline text that is not a link, as this often confuses users.
Text Transformation
The text-transform property is used to specify uppercase and lowercase letters in a text. It can be used to turn everything into uppercase or lowercase letters, or capitalize the first letter of each word.
Example
p.uppercase {text-transform:uppercase;} p.lowercase {text-transform:lowercase;} p.capitalize {text-transform:capitalize;}
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> p.uppercase {text-transform:uppercase;} p.lowercase {text-transform:lowercase;} p.capitalize {text-transform:capitalize;} </style> </head> <body> <p class="uppercase">This is some text.</p> <p class="lowercase">This is some text.</p> <p class="capitalize">This is some text.</p> </body> </html>
Try it yourself
Text Indentation
The text-indentation property is used to specify the indentation of the first line of a text.
Example
p {text-indent:50px;}
<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> p {text-indent:50px;} </style> </head> <body> <p>In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'</p> </body> </html> Out Put
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'