HTML Styles - CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.
CSS saves a lot of work. It can control the layout of multiple web
pages all at once.
CSS =
Styles and Colors
Manipulate Text
Colors, Boxes
What is CSS?
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is used to format the layout of a
webpage.
With CSS, you can control the color, font, the size of text, the
spacing between elements, how elements are positioned and laid out, what
background images or background colors are to be used, different displays for
different devices and screen sizes, and much more!
Tip: The word cascading means
that a style applied to a parent element will also apply to all children
elements within the parent. So, if you set the color of the body text to
"blue", all headings, paragraphs, and other text elements within the
body will also get the same color (unless you specify something else)!
Using CSS
CSS can be added to HTML documents in 3 ways:
- Inline - by
using the
style
attribute inside HTML elements - Internal - by
using a
<style>
element in the<head>
section - External - by
using a
<link>
element to link to an external CSS file
The most common way to add CSS, is to keep the styles in external
CSS files. However, in this tutorial we will use inline and internal styles,
because this is easier to demonstrate, and easier for you to try it yourself.
Inline CSS
An inline CSS is used to apply a unique style to a single HTML
element.
An inline CSS uses the style
attribute
of an HTML element.
The following example sets the text color of the <h1>
element
to blue, and the text color of the <p>
element
to red:
Example
<h1 style="color:blue;">A Blue Heading</h1>
<p style="color:red;">A red paragraph.</p>
Internal CSS
An internal CSS is used to define a style for a single HTML page.
An internal CSS is defined in the <head>
section
of an HTML page, within a <style>
element.
The following example sets the text color of ALL the <h1>
elements
(on that page) to blue, and the text color of ALL the <p>
elements
to red. In addition, the page will be displayed with a "blue"
background color:
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {background-color: blue;}
h1 {color: blue;}
p {color: red;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This
is a heading</h1>
<p>This
is a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
External CSS
An external style sheet is used to define the style for many HTML
pages.
To use an external style sheet, add a link to it in the <head>
section
of each HTML page:
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<h1>This
is a heading</h1>
<p>This
is a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
The external style sheet can be written in any text editor. The
file must not contain any HTML code, and must be saved with a .css extension.
Here is what the "styles.css" file looks like:
"styles.css":
body {
background-color: blue;
}
h1 {
color: blue;
}
p {
color: red;
}
Tip: With an external style sheet, you can
change the look of an entire web site, by changing one file!
CSS Colors, Fonts and Sizes
Here, we will demonstrate some commonly used CSS properties. You
will learn more about them later.
The CSS color
property defines
the text color to be used.
The CSS font-family
property
defines the font to be used.
The CSS font-size
property
defines the text size to be used.
Example
Use of CSS color, font-family and font-size properties:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
h1 {
color: blue;
font-family: courier;
font-size: 300%;
}
p {
color: red;
font-family: courier;
font-size: 160%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This
is a heading</h1>
<p>This
is a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
CSS Border
The CSS border
property defines a
border around an HTML element.
Tip: You can define a border for nearly
all HTML elements.
Example
Use of CSS border property:
p {
border: 2px solid blue;
}
CSS Padding
The CSS padding
property
defines a padding (space) between the text and the border.
Example
Use of CSS border and padding properties:
p {
border: 2px solid blue;
padding: 30px;
}
CSS Margin
The CSS margin
property defines a
margin (space) outside the border.
Example
Use of CSS border and margin properties:
p {
border: 2px solid powderblue;
margin: 50px;
}
Link to External CSS
External style sheets can be referenced with a full URL or with a
path relative to the current web page.
Example
This example uses a full URL to link to a style sheet:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://www.fixhubblog.com/html/styles.css">
Example
This example links to a style sheet located in the html folder on
the current web site:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/html/styles.css">
Example
This example links to a style sheet located in the same folder as
the current page:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
Chapter Summary
- Use
the HTML
style
attribute for inline styling - Use
the HTML
<style>
element to define internal CSS - Use
the HTML
<link>
element to refer to an external CSS file - Use
the HTML
<head>
element to store <style> and <link> elements - Use
the CSS
color
property for text colors - Use
the CSS
font-family
property for text fonts - Use
the CSS
font-size
property for text sizes - Use
the CSS
border
property for borders - Use
the CSS
padding
property for space inside the border - Use
the CSS
margin
property for space outside the border
HTML Style Tags
Tag |
Description |
<style> |
Defines style information for
an HTML document |
<link> |
Defines a link between a
document and an external resource |