CSS The important Rule
What is !important?
The !important rule in CSS is used to add more importance to a
property/value than normal.
In fact, if you use
the !important rule, it will
override ALL previous styling rules for that specific property on that element!
Let us look at an example:
Example
#myid {
background-color: blue;
}
.myclass {
background-color: gray;
}
p {
background-color: red !important;
}
Example Explained
In the example above. all
three paragraphs will get a red background color, even though the ID selector
and the class selector have a higher specificity. The !important rule overrides the background-color property
in both cases.
Important About !important
The only way to override
an !important rule is to include
another !important rule on a declaration
with the same (or higher) specificity in the source code - and here the problem
starts! This makes the CSS code confusing and the debugging will be hard, especially
if you have a large style sheet!
Here we have created a
simple example. It is not very clear, when you look at the CSS source code,
which color is considered most important:
Example
#myid {
background-color: blue !important;
}
.myclass {
background-color: gray !important;
}
p {
background-color: red !important;
}
Tip: It
is good to know about the !important rule.
You might see it in some CSS source code. However, do not use it unless you
absolutely have to.
Maybe One or Two Fair Uses of !important
One way to use !important is if you have to override a style that cannot be overridden
in any other way. This could be if you are working on a Content Management
System (CMS) and cannot edit the CSS code. Then you can set some custom styles
to override some of the CMS styles.
Another way to use !important is: Assume you want a special look for all buttons on a
page. Here, buttons are styled with a gray background color, white text, and
some padding and border:
Example
.button {
background-color: #8c8c8c;
color: white;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid black;
}
The look of a button can
sometimes change if we put it inside another element with higher specificity,
and the properties get in conflict. Here is an example of this:
Example
.button {
background-color: #8c8c8c;
color: white;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid black;
}
#myDiv a {
color: red;
background-color: yellow;
}
To "force" all
buttons to have the same look, no matter what, we can add the !important rule to the properties of the button, like this:
Example
.button {
background-color: #8c8c8c !important;
color: white !important;
padding: 5px !important;
border: 1px solid black !important;
}
#myDiv a {
color: red;
background-color: yellow;
}
