How To Add CSS

When a browser reads a style sheet, it will format the HTML document according to the information in the style sheet.

Three Ways to Insert CSS

There are three ways of inserting a style sheet:

External CSS

With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire website by changing just one file!

Each HTML page must include a reference to the external style sheet file inside the element, inside the head section.

Example

External styles are defined within the element, inside the section of an HTML page:

This is a heading

This is a paragraph.

An external style sheet can be written in any text editor, and must be saved with a .css extension.

The external .css file should not contain any HTML tags.

Here is how the «mystyle.css» file looks:

«mystyle.css»

body <
background-color: lightblue;
>

h1 color: navy;
margin-left: 20px;
>

Note: Do not add a space between the property value (20) and the unit (px):
Incorrect (space): margin-left: 20 px;
Correct (no space): margin-left: 20px;

Internal CSS

An internal style sheet may be used if one single HTML page has a unique style.

The internal style is defined inside the element, inside the head section.

Example

Internal styles are defined within the element, inside the section of an HTML page:

This is a heading

This is a paragraph.

Inline CSS

An inline style may be used to apply a unique style for a single element.

To use inline styles, add the style attribute to the relevant element. The style attribute can contain any CSS property.

Example

Inline styles are defined within the «style» attribute of the relevant element:

This is a heading

This is a paragraph.

Tip: An inline style loses many of the advantages of a style sheet (by mixing content with presentation). Use this method sparingly.

Multiple Style Sheets

If some properties have been defined for the same selector (element) in different style sheets, the value from the last read style sheet will be used.

Assume that an external style sheet has the following style for the element:

Then, assume that an internal style sheet also has the following style for the element:

Example

If the internal style is defined after the link to the external style sheet, the elements will be «orange»:

Example

However, if the internal style is defined before the link to the external style sheet, the elements will be «navy»:

Cascading Order

What style will be used when there is more than one style specified for an HTML element?

All the styles in a page will «cascade» into a new «virtual» style sheet by the following rules, where number one has the highest priority:

1. Inline style (inside an HTML element)
2. External and internal style sheets (in the head section)
3. Browser default

So, an inline style has the highest priority, and will override external and internal styles and browser defaults.

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CSS Links

With CSS, links can be styled in many different ways.

Styling Links

Links can be styled with any CSS property (e.g. color , font-family , background , etc.).

Example

In addition, links can be styled differently depending on what state they are in.

The four links states are:

• a:link — a normal, unvisited link
• a:visited — a link the user has visited
• a:hover — a link when the user mouses over it
• a:active — a link the moment it is clicked

Example

/* unvisited link */
a:link color: red;
>

/* visited link */
a:visited color: green;
>

/* mouse over link */
a:hover color: hotpink;
>

/* selected link */
a:active color: blue;
>

When setting the style for several link states, there are some order rules:

Text Decoration

The text-decoration property is mostly used to remove underlines from links:

Example

a:visited text-decoration: none;
>

a:hover text-decoration: underline;
>

a:active text-decoration: underline;
>

Background Color

The background-color property can be used to specify a background color for links:

Example

a:link <
background-color: yellow;
>

a:visited background-color: cyan;
>

a:hover background-color: lightgreen;
>

a:active background-color: hotpink;
>

Link Buttons

This example demonstrates a more advanced example where we combine several CSS properties to display links as boxes/buttons:

Example

a:link, a:visited <
background-color: #f44336;
color: white;
padding: 14px 25px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
>

a:hover, a:active background-color: red;
>

More Examples

Example

This example demonstrates how to add other styles to hyperlinks:

Example

Another example of how to create link boxes/buttons:

a:link, a:visited <
background-color: white;
color: black;
border: 2px solid green;
padding: 10px 20px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
>

a:hover, a:active background-color: green;
color: white;
>

Example

This example demonstrates the different types of cursors (can be useful for links):

COLOR PICKER

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How to Change Link Colors with CSS

There are three ways of changing the link color: inline, internal and external.

Inline method

Add the style attribute directly to the hyperlink code and specify the color property through the style attribute, then give a color value to it.

Example of changing a link color with the inline method:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> head> body> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/" style="color: #8ebf42">website a>. p> body> html>

Result

Internal method

Example of changing the link color with the internal method:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> a < color: #8ebf42; > style> head> body> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">website a>. p> body> html>

There are 4 link states that links can be styled depending on what state they are in:

• a:link — a normal, unvisited link,
• a:visited — a link the user has visited,
• a:hover — a link when a user mouses over it,
• a:active — the moment a link is clicked.

When setting the style for several link states, follow these rules:

Example of using different link states:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> /* unvisited link */ a:link < color: #ccc; > /* visited link */ a:visited < color: #095484; > /* mouse over link */ a:hover < color: #8ebf42; > /* selected link */ a:active < color: #800000; > style> head> body> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">website a>. p> body> html>

How to change the colors of the hyperlink underline and anchor text

To change the underline color, first of all, you need to remove it with the «none» value of the text-decoration property and set the «none» value, then add the border-bottom property with the width (in this case, used as a hyperlink underline width) and border-style (solid, dotted, or dashed) properties. For the anchor text color, use the color property.

Example of changing a hyperlink underline and anchor text color:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> a < text-decoration: none; > a:link < color: #000; border-bottom: 1px solid #ff0000; > a:visited < color: #e600e6; border-bottom: 1px solid #b3b3b3; > a:hover < color: #2d8653; border-bottom: 1px solid #000099; > style> head> body> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">website a>. p> body> html>

Example of styling links with the mentioned methods:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> a.one:link < color: #ccc; > a.one:visited < color: #095484; > a.one:hover < color: #8ebf42; > a.two:link < color: #ccc; > a.two:visited < color: #095484; > a.two:hover < font-size: 150%; > a.three:link < color: #ccc; > a.three:visited < color: #095484; > a.three:hover < background: #8ebf42; > a.four:link < color: #ccc; > a.four:visited < color: #095484; > a.four:hover < font-family: monospace; > a.five:link < color: #095484; text-decoration: none; > a.five:visited < color: #095484; text-decoration: none; > a.five:hover < text-decoration: overline underline; > style> head> body> p>Mouse over the links and watch how they will be changed: p> p> a class="one" href="#">This link changes color a> p> p> a class="two" href="#">This link changes font-size a> p> p> a class="three" href="#">This link changes background-color a> p> p> a class="four" href="#">This link changes font-family a> p> p> a class="five" href="#">This link changes text-decoration a> p> body> html>

Now, we’ll demonstrate another example, where we use the color property with its «inherit» value. This will make the element take the color of its parent.

Example of changing the link color with the «inherit» value of the color property:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> p < color: green; > p a < color: inherit; > style> head> body> h1>Example h1> a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">W3docs.com a> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">W3docs.com a> website. p> body> html>

Example of styling links with the CSS text-decoration-color property:

html> html> head> title>Title of the document title> style> a < text-decoration-color: grey; > a:link < color: #777777; > a:hover < color: #2d8653; > style> head> body> p>Visit our a href="https://www.w3docs.com/">website a>. p> body> html>

External method

Using external stylesheets you can take control of all the hyperlinks of your site. With external stylesheets, many attractive hyperlink effects can be created to develop the look of your website.

With the external method, you’ll link your web pages to an external .css file that can be created by any text editor in your device. This is a more efficient method, especially when you need to style a large website. You can change your whole site at once by editing one .css file.

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