This document is a W3C Recommendation. It has been reviewed by W3C (http://www.w3.org/) Members and general consensus that the specification is appropriate for use has been reached. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. W3C promotes widespread deployment of this Recommendation.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/.
This document specifies level 1 of the Cascading Style Sheet mechanism (CSS1). CSS1 is a simple style sheet mechanism that allows authors and readers to attach style (e.g. fonts, colors and spacing) to HTML documents. The CSS1 language is human readable and writable, and expresses style in common desktop publishing terminology.
One of the fundamental features of CSS is that style sheets cascade; authors can attach a preferred style sheet, while the reader may have a personal style sheet to adjust for human or technological handicaps. The rules for resolving conflicts between different style sheets are defined in this specification.
This Recommendation results from W3C activities in the area of Style Sheets. For background information on style sheets, see [1].
Abstract
Terminology
1
Basic concepts
1.1
Containment in HTML
1.2
Grouping
1.3
Inheritance
1.4
Class as selector
1.5
ID as selector
1.6
Contextual selectors
1.7
Comments
2
Pseudo-classes and
pseudo-elements
2.1
Anchor pseudo-classes
2.2
Typographical
pseudo-elements
2.3
The 'first-line'
pseudo-element
2.4
The 'first-letter'
pseudo-element
2.5
Pseudo-elements in
selectors
2.6
Multiple
pseudo-elements
3
The cascade
3.1
'important'
3.2
Cascading order
4
Formatting model
4.1
Block-level elements
4.1.1
Vertical formatting
4.1.2
Horizontal formatting
4.1.3
List-item elements
4.1.4
Floating elements
4.2
Inline elements
4.3
Replaced elements
4.4
The height of lines
4.5
The canvas
4.6
'BR' elements
5
CSS1 properties
5.1
Notation for property
values
5.2
Font properties
5.2.1
Font matching
5.2.2
'font-family'
5.2.3
'font-style'
5.2.4
'font-variant'
5.2.5
'font-weight'
5.2.6
'font-size'
5.2.7
'font'
5.3
Color and background
properties
5.3.1
'color'
5.3.2
'background-color'
5.3.3
'background-image'
5.3.4
'background-repeat'
5.3.5
'background-attachment'
5.3.6
'background-position'
5.3.7
'background'
5.4
Text properties
5.4.1
'word-spacing'
5.4.2
'letter-spacing'
5.4.3
'text-decoration'
5.4.4
'vertical-align'
5.4.5
'text-transform'
5.4.6
'text-align'
5.4.7
'text-indent'
5.4.8
'line-height'
5.5
Box properties
5.5.1
'margin-top'
5.5.2
'margin-right'
5.5.3
'margin-bottom'
5.5.4
'margin-left'
5.5.5
'margin'
5.5.6
'padding-top'
5.5.7
'padding-right'
5.5.8
'padding-bottom'
5.5.9
'padding-left'
5.5.10
'padding'
5.5.11
'border-top-width'
5.5.12
'border-right-width'
5.5.13
'border-bottom-width'
5.5.14
'border-left-width'
5.5.15
'border-width'
5.5.16
'border-color'
5.5.17
'border-style'
5.5.18
'border-top'
5.5.19
'border-right'
5.5.20
'border-bottom'
5.5.21
'border-left'
5.5.22
'border'
5.5.23
'width'
5.5.24
'height'
5.5.25
'float'
5.5.26
'clear'
5.6
Classification
properties
5.6.1
'display'
5.6.2
'white-space'
5.6.3
'list-style-type'
5.6.4
'list-style-image'
5.6.5
'list-style-position'
5.6.6
'list-style'
6
Units
6.1
Length units
6.2
Percentage units
6.3
Color units
6.4
URL
7
CSS1 conformance
7.1
Forward-compatible
parsing
8
References
9
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: Sample style sheet for HTML 2.0
Appendix B: CSS1 grammar
Appendix C: Encoding
Appendix D: Gamma correction
Appendix E: The applicability and extensibility of
CSS1
In the text of this specification, single quotes ('...') denote HTML and CSS excerpts.
Designing simple style sheets is easy. One needs only to know a little HTML and some basic desktop publishing terminology. E.g., to set the text color of 'H1' elements to blue, one can say:
H1 { color: blue }
The example above is a simple CSS rule. A rule consists of two main parts: selector ('H1') and declaration ('color: blue'). The declaration has two parts: property ('color') and value ('blue'). While the example above tries to influence only one of the properties needed for rendering an HTML document, it qualifies as a style sheet on its own. Combined with other style sheets (one fundamental feature of CSS is that style sheets are combined) it will determine the final presentation of the document.
The selector is the link between the HTML document and the style sheet, and all HTML element types are possible selectors. HTML element types are defined in the HTML specification [2].
The 'color' property is one of around 50 properties that determine the presentation of an HTML document. The list of properties and their possible values is defined in this specification.
HTML authors need to write style sheets only if they want to suggest a specific style for their documents. Each User Agent (UA, often a "web browser" or "web client") will have a default style sheet that presents documents in a reasonable -- but arguably mundane -- manner. Appendix A contains a sample style sheet to present HTML documents as suggested in the HTML 2.0 specification [3].
The formal grammar for the CSS1 language is defined in Appendix B.
In order for the style sheets to influence the presentation, the UA must be aware of their existence. The HTML specification [2] define how to link HTML with style sheets. This section is therefore informative, but not normative:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>title</TITLE>
<LINK REL=STYLESHEET TYPE="text/css"
HREF="http://style.com/cool" TITLE="Cool">
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
@import url(http://style.com/basic);
H1 { color: blue }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Headline is blue</H1>
<P STYLE="color: green">While the paragraph is green.
</BODY>
</HTML>
The example shows four ways to combine style and HTML: using the 'LINK' element to link an external style sheet, a 'STYLE' element inside the 'HEAD' element, an imported style sheet using the CSS '@import' notation, and a 'STYLE' attribute on an element inside 'BODY'. The latter option mixes style with content and loses the corresponding advantages of traditional style sheets.
The 'LINK' element references alternative style sheets that the reader can select, while imported style sheets are automatically merged with the rest of the style sheet.
Traditionally, UAs have silently ignored unknown tags. As as result, old UAs will ignore the 'STYLE' element, but its content will be treated as part of the document body, and rendered as such. During a transition phase, 'STYLE' element content may be hidden using SGML comments:
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"><!--
H1 { color: green }
--></STYLE>
Since the 'STYLE' element is declared as "CDATA" in the DTD (as defined in [2]), conforming SGML parsers will not consider the above style sheet to be a comment that is to be removed.
To reduce the size of style sheets, one can group selectors in comma-separated lists:
H1, H2, H3 { font-family: helvetica }
Similarly, declarations can be grouped:
H1 {
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 12pt;
line-height: 14pt;
font-family: helvetica;
font-variant: normal;
font-style: normal;
}
In addition, some properties have their own grouping syntax:
H1 { font: bold 12pt/14pt helvetica }
which is equivalent to the previous example.
In the first example, the color of 'H1' elements was set to blue. Suppose there is an 'H1' element with an emphasized element inside:
<H1>The headline <EM>is</EM> important!</H1>
If no color has been assigned to the 'EM' element, the emphasized "is" will inherit the color of the parent element, i.e. it will also appear in blue. Other style properties are likewise inherited, e.g. 'font-family' and 'font-size'.
To set a "default" style property for a document, one can set the property on an element from which all visible elements descend. In HTML documents, the 'BODY' element can serve this function:
BODY {
color: black;
background: url(texture.gif) white;
}
This will work even if the author has omitted the 'BODY' tag (which is legal) since the HTML parser will infer the missing tag. The example above sets the text color to be black and the background to be an image. The background will be white if the image is not available. (See section 5.3 for more on this.)
Some style properties are not inherited from the parent element to the child element. Most often it is intuitive why this is not the case. E.g., the 'background' property does not inherit, but the parent element's background will shine through by default.
Often, the value of a property is a percentage that refers to another property:
P { font-size: 10pt }
P { line-height: 120% } /* relative to 'font-size', i.e. 12pt */
For each property that allows percentage values, it is defined what property it refers to. Children elements of 'P' will inherit the computed value of 'line-height' (i.e. 12pt), not the percentage.
To increase the granularity of control over elements, a new attribute has been added to HTML [2]: 'CLASS'. All elements inside the 'BODY' element can be classed, and the class can be addressed in the style sheet:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title</TITLE>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
H1.pastoral { color: #00FF00 }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1 CLASS=pastoral>Way too green</H1>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The normal inheritance rules apply to classed elements; they inherit values from their parent in the document structure.
One can address all elements of the same class by omitting the tag name in the selector:
.pastoral { color: green } /* all elements with CLASS pastoral */
Only one class can be specified per selector. 'P.pastoral.marine' is therefore an invalid selector in CSS1. (Contextual selectors, described below, can have one class per simple selector)
CSS gives so much power to the CLASS attribute, that in many cases it doesn't even matter what HTML element the class is set on -- you can make any element emulate almost any other. Relying on this power is not recommended, since it removes the level of structure that has a universal meaning (HTML elements). A structure based on CLASS is only useful within a restricted domain, where the meaning of a class has been mutually agreed upon.
HTML [2] also introduces the 'ID' attribute which is guaranteed to have a unique value over the document. It can therefore be of special importance as a style sheet selector, and can be addressed with a preceding '#':
#z98y { letter-spacing: 0.3em }
H1#z98y { letter-spacing: 0.5em }
<P ID=z98y>Wide text</P>
In the above example, the first selector matches the 'P' element due to the 'ID' attribute value. The second selector specifies both an element type ('H1') and an ID value, and will therefore not match the 'P' element.
By using the ID attribute as selector, one can set style properties on a per-element basis. While style sheets have been designed to augment document structure, this feature will allow authors to create documents that present well on the canvas without taking advantage of the structural elements of HTML. This use of style sheets is discouraged.
Inheritance saves CSS designers typing. Instead of setting all style properties, one can create defaults and then list the exceptions. To give 'EM' elements within 'H1' a different color, one may specify:
H1 { color: blue }
EM { color: red }
When this style sheet is in effect, all emphasized sections within or outside 'H1' will turn red. Probably, one wanted only 'EM' elements within 'H1' to turn red and this can be specified with:
H1 EM { color: red }
The selector is now a search pattern on the stack of open elements, and this type of selector is referred to as a contextual selector. Contextual selectors consist of several simple selectors separated by whitespace (all selectors described up to now have been simple selectors). Only elements that match the last simple selector (in this case the 'EM' element) are addressed, and only if the search pattern matches. Contextual selectors in CSS1 look for ancestor relationships, but other relationships (e.g. parent-child) may be introduced in later revisions. In the example above, the search pattern matches if 'EM' is a descendant of 'H1', i.e. if 'EM' is inside an 'H1' element.
UL LI { font-size: small }
UL UL LI { font-size: x-small }
Here, the first selector matches 'LI' elements with at least one 'UL' ancestor. The second selector matches a subset of the first, i.e. 'LI' elements with at least two 'UL' ancestors. The conflict is resolved by the second selector being more specific because of the longer search pattern. See the cascading order (section 3.2) for more on this.
Contextual selectors can look for element types, CLASS attributes, ID attributes or combinations of these:
DIV P { font: small sans-serif }
.reddish H1 { color: red }
#x78y CODE { background: blue }
DIV.sidenote H1 { font-size: large }
The first selector matches all 'P' elements that have a 'DIV' among the ancestors. The second selector matches matches all 'H1' elements that have an ancestor of class 'reddish'. The third selector matches all 'CODE' elements that are descendants of the element with 'ID=x78y'. The fourth selector matches all 'H1' elements that have a 'DIV' ancestor with class 'sidenote'.
Several contextual selectors can be grouped together:
H1 B, H2 B, H1 EM, H2 EM { color: red }
Which is equivalent to:
H1 B { color: red }
H2 B { color: red }
H1 EM { color: red }
H2 EM { color: red }
Textual comments in CSS style sheets are similar to those in the C programming language [7]:
EM { color: red } /* red, really red!! */
Comments cannot be nested. For a CSS1 parser, a comment is equivalent to whitespace.
In CSS1, style is normally attached to an element based on its position in the document structure. This simple model is sufficient for a wide variety of styles, but doesn't cover some common effects. The concept of pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements extend addressing in CSS1 to allow external information to influence the formatting process.
Pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements can be used in CSS selectors, but do not exist in the HTML source. Rather, they are "inserted" by the UA under certain conditions to be used for addressing in style sheets. They are referred to as "classes" and "elements" since this is a convenient way of describing their behavior. More specifically, their behavior is defined by a fictional tag sequence.
Pseudo-elements are used to address sub-parts of elements, while pseudo-classes allow style sheets to differentiate between different element types.
User agents commonly display newly visited anchors differently from older ones. In CSS1, this is handled through pseudo-classes on the 'A' element:
A:link { color: red } /* unvisited link */
A:visited { color: blue } /* visited links */
A:active { color: lime } /* active links */
All 'A' elements with an 'HREF' attribute will be put into one and only one of these groups (i.e. target anchors are not affected). UAs may choose to move an element from 'visited' to 'link' after a certain time. An 'active' link is one that is currently being selected (e.g. by a mouse button press) by the reader.
The formatting of an anchor pseudo-class is as if the class had been inserted manually. A UA is not required to reformat a currently displayed document due to anchor pseudo-class transitions. E.g., a style sheet can legally specify that the 'font-size' of an 'active' link should be larger that a 'visited' link, but the UA is not required to dynamically reformat the document when the reader selects the 'visited' link.
Pseudo-class selectors do not match normal classes, and vice versa. The style rule in the example below will therefore not have any influence:
A:link { color: red }
<A CLASS=link NAME=target5> ... </A>
In CSS1, anchor pseudo-classes have no effect on elements other than 'A'. Therefore, the element type can be omitted from the selector:
A:link { color: red }
:link { color: red }
The two selectors above will select the same elements in CSS1.
Pseudo-class names are case-insensitive.
Pseudo-classes can be used in contextual selectors:
A:link IMG { border: solid blue }
Also, pseudo-classes can be combined with normal classes:
A.external:visited { color: blue }
<A CLASS=external HREF="http://out.side/">external link</A>
If the link in the above example has been visited, it will be rendered in blue. Note that normal class names precede pseudo-classes in the selector.
Some common typographical effects are associated not with structural elements but rather with typographical items as formatted on the canvas. In CSS1, two such typographical items can be addressed through pseudo-elements: the first line of an element, and the first letter.
CSS1 core: UAs may ignore all rules with ':first-line' or ':first-letter' in the selector, or, alternatively, only support a subset of the properties on these pseudo-elements. (see section 7)
The 'first-line' pseudo-element is used to apply special styles to the first line as formatted on the canvas:
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
P:first-line { font-style: small-caps }
</STYLE>
<P>The first line of an article in Newsweek.
On a text-based UA, this could be formatted as:
THE FIRST LINE OF AN article in Newsweek.
The fictional tag sequence in the above example is:
<P> <P:first-line> The first line of an </P:first-line> article in Newsweek. </P>
The 'first-line' end tag is inserted at the end of the first line as formatted on the canvas.
The 'first-line' pseudo-element can only be attached to a block-level element.
The 'first-line' pseudo-element is similar to an inline element, but with certain restrictions. Only the following properties apply to a 'first-line' element: font properties (5.2), color and background properties (5.3), 'word-spacing' (5.4.1), 'letter-spacing' (5.4.2), 'text-decoration' (5.4.3), 'vertical-align (5.4.4), 'text-transform' (5.4.5), 'line-height' (5.4.8), 'clear' (5.5.26).
The 'first-letter' pseudo-element is used for "initial caps" and "drop caps", which are common typographical effects. It is similar to an inline element if its 'float' property is 'none', otherwise it is similar to a floating element. These are the properties that apply to 'first-letter' pseudo-elements: font properties (5.2), color and background properties (5.3), 'text-decoration' (5.4.3), 'vertical-align (only if 'float' is 'none', 5.4.4), 'text-transform' (5.4.5), 'line-height' (5.4.8), margin properties (5.5.1-5.5.5), padding properties (5.5.6-5.5.10), border properties (5.5.11-5.5.22), 'float' (5.5.25), 'clear' (5.5.26).
This is how you could make a dropcap initial letter span two lines:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title</TITLE>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
P { font-size: 12pt; line-height: 12pt }
P:first-letter { font-size: 200%; float: left }
SPAN { text-transform: uppercase }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P><SPAN>The first</SPAN> few words of an article in The Economist.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
If a text-based UA supports the 'first-letter' pseudo-element (they probably will not), the above could be formatted as:
___ | HE FIRST few | words of an article in the Economist.
The fictional tag sequence is:
<P> <SPAN> <P:first-letter> T </P:first-letter>he first </SPAN> few words of an article in the Economist. </P>
Note that the 'first-letter' pseudo-element tags abut the content (i.e. the initial character), while the 'first-line' pseudo-element start tag is inserted right after the start tag of the element it is attached to.
The UA defines what characters are inside the 'first-letter' element. Normally, quotes that precede the first letter should be included:
|| /\ bird in
/ \ the hand
/----\ is worth
/ \ two in
the bush," says an
old proverb.
When the paragraph starts with other punctuation (e.g. parenthesis and ellipsis points) or other characters that are normally not considered letters (e.g. digits and mathematical symbols), 'first-letter' pseudo-elements are usually ignored.
Some languages may have specific rules about how to treat certain letter combinations. In Dutch, for example, if the letter combination "ij" appears at the beginning of a word, they should both be considered within the 'first-letter' pseudo-element.
The 'first-letter' pseudo-element can only be attached to a block-level element.
In a contextual selector, pseudo-elements are only allowed at the end of the selector:
BODY P:first-letter { color: purple }
Pseudo-elements can be combined with classes in selectors:
P.initial:first-letter { color: red }
<P CLASS=initial>First paragraph</A>
The above example would make the first letter of all 'P' elements with 'CLASS=initial' red. When combined with classes or pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements must be specified at the end of the selector. Only one pseudo-element can be specified per selector.
Several pseudo elements can be combined:
P { color: red; font-size: 12pt }
P:first-letter { color: green; font-size: 200% }
P:first-line { color: blue }
<P>Some text that ends up on two lines</P>
In this example, the first letter of each 'P' element would be green with a font size of 24pt. The rest of the first line (as formatted on the canvas) would be blue while the rest of the paragraph would be red. Assuming that a line break will occur before the word "ends", the fictional tag sequence is:
<P> <P:first-line> <P:first-letter> S </P:first-letter>ome text that </P:first-line> ends up on two lines </P>
Note that the 'first-letter' element is inside the 'first-line' element. Properties set on 'first-line' will be inherited by 'first-letter', but are overridden if the same property is set on 'first-letter'.
If a pseudo-element breaks up a real element the necessary extra tags must be regenerated in the fictional tag sequence. For example, if a SPAN element spans over a </P:first-line> tag, a set of SPAN end and start tags must be regenerated and the fictional tag sequence becomes:
<P> <P:first-line> <SPAN> This text is inside a long </SPAN> </P:first-line> <SPAN> span element </SPAN>
In CSS, more than one style sheet can influence the presentation simultaneously. There are two main reasons for this feature: modularity and author/reader balance.
@import url(http://www.style.org/pastoral);
@import url(http://www.style.org/marine);
H1 { color: red } /* override imported sheets */
Sometimes conflicts will arise between the style sheets that influence the presentation. Conflict resolution is based on each style rule having a weight. By default, the weights of the reader's rules are less than the weights of rules in the author's documents. I.e., if there are conflicts between the style sheets of an incoming document and the reader's personal sheets, the author's rules will be used. Both reader and author rules override the UA's default values.
The imported style sheets also cascade with each other, in the order they are imported, according to the cascading rules defined below. Any rules specified in the style sheet itself override rules in imported style sheets. That is, imported style sheets are lower in the cascading order than rules in the style sheet itself. Imported style sheets can themselves import and override other style sheets, recursively.
In CSS1, all '@import' statements must occur at the start of a style sheet, before any declarations. This makes it easy to see that rules in the style sheet itself override rules in the imported style sheets.
Style sheet designers can increase the weights of their declarations:
H1 { color: black ! important; background: white ! important }
P { font-size: 12pt ! important; font-style: italic }
In the example above, the first three declarations have increased weight, while the last declaration has normal weight.
A reader rule with an important declaration will override an author rule with a normal declaration. An author rule with an important declaration will override a reader rule with an important declaration.
Conflicting rules are intrinsic to the CSS mechanism. To find the value for an element/property combination, the following algorithm must be followed:
LI {...} /* a=0 b=0 c=1 -> specificity = 1 */
UL LI {...} /* a=0 b=0 c=2 -> specificity = 2 */
UL OL LI {...} /* a=0 b=0 c=3 -> specificity = 3 */
LI.red {...} /* a=0 b=1 c=1 -> specificity = 11 */
UL OL LI.red {...} /* a=0 b=1 c=3 -> specificity = 13 */
#x34y {...} /* a=1 b=0 c=0 -> specificity = 100 */
Pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes are counted as normal elements and classes, respectively.
The search for the property value can be terminated whenever one rule has a higher weight than the other rules that apply to the same element/property combination.
This strategy gives author's style sheets considerably higher weight than those of the reader. It is therefore important that the reader has the ability to turn off the influence of a certain style sheet, e.g. through a pull-down menu.
A declaration in the 'STYLE' attribute of an element (see section 1.1 for an example) has the same weight as a declaration with an ID-based selector that is specified at the end of the style sheet:
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
#x97z { color: blue }
</STYLE>
<P ID=x97z STYLE="color: red">
In the above example, the color of the 'P' element would be red. Although the specificity is the same for both declarations, the declaration in the 'STYLE' attribute will override the one in the 'STYLE' element because of cascading rule number 5.
The UA may choose to honor other stylistic HTML attributes, for example 'ALIGN'. If so, these attributes are translated to the corresponding CSS rules with specificity equal to 1. The rules are assumed to be at the start of the author style sheet and may be overridden by subsequent style sheet rules. In a transition phase, this policy will make it easier for stylistic attributes to coexist with style sheets.
CSS1 assumes a simple box-oriented formatting model where each element results in one or more rectangular boxes. (Elements that have a 'display' value of 'none' are not formatted and will therefore not result in a box.) All boxes have a core content area with optional surrounding padding, border and margin areas.
_______________________________________
| |
| margin (transparent) |
| _________________________________ |
| | | |
| | border | |
| | ___________________________ | |
| | | | | |
| | | padding | | |
| | | _____________________ | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | content | | | |
| | | |_____________________| | | |
| | |___________________________| | |
| |_________________________________| |
|_______________________________________|
| element width |
| box width |
The size of the margin, border and padding are set with the margin (5.5.1-5.5.5), padding (5.5.6-5.5.10), and border (5.5.11-5.5.22) properties respectively. The padding area uses the same background as the element itself (set with the background properties (5.3.2-5.3.7). The color and style for the border is set with the border properties. The margins are always transparent, so the parent element will shine through.
The size of the box is the sum of the element width (i.e. formatted text or image) and the padding, the border and the margin areas.
From the formatter's point of view there are two main types of elements: block-level and inline.
Elements with a 'display' value of 'block' or 'list-item' are block-level elements. Also, floating elements (elements with a 'float' value other than 'none') are considered to be block-level elements.
The following example shows how margins and padding format a 'UL' element with two children. To simplify the diagram there are no borders. Also, the single-letter "constants" in this example are not legal CSS1 syntax, but is a convenient way to tie the style sheet values to the figure.
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
UL {
background: red;
margin: A B C D;
padding: E F G H;
}
LI {
color: white;
background: blue; /* so text is white on blue */
margin: a b c d;
padding: e f g h;
}
</STYLE>
..
<UL>
<LI>1st element of list
<LI>2nd element of list
</UL>
_______________________________________________________ | | | A UL margin (transparent) | | _______________________________________________ | | D | | B | | | E UL padding (red) | | | | _______________________________________ | | | | H | | F | | | | | a LI margin (transparent, | | | | | | so red shines through) | | | | | | _______________________________ | | | | | | d | | b | | | | | | | e LI padding (blue) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | h 1st element of list f | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | g | | | | | | | |_______________________________| | | | | | | | | | | | | max(a, c) | | | <- note the max | | | _______________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | d | e LI padding (blue) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | h 2nd element of list f | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | g | | | | | | | |_______________________________| | | | | | | | | | | | | c LI margin (transparent, | | | | | | so red shines through) | | | | | |_______________________________________| | | | | | | | | G | | | |_______________________________________________| | | | | C | |_______________________________________________________|
Technically, padding and margin properties are not inherited. But, as the example shows, the placement of an element is relative to ancestors and siblings, so these elements' padding and margin properties have an effect on their children.
If there had been borders in the above example they would have appeared between the padding and the margins.
The following diagram introduces some useful terminology:
--------------- <-- top
top margin
---------------
top border
---------------
top padding
+-------------+ <-- inner top
| | | | | | | |
|--left--|--left--|--left--|-- content --|--right--|--right--|--right--|
| margin | border | padding| | padding | border | margin |
| | | | | | | |
+-------------+ <-- inner bottom
^ ^ ^ ^
left left inner edge right inner edge right
outer outer
edge bottom padding edge
---------------
bottom border
---------------
bottom margin
--------------- <-- bottom
The left outer edge is the edge of an element with its padding, border and margin taken into account. The left inner edge is the edge of the content only, inside any padding, border or margin. Ditto for right. The top is the top of the object including any padding, border and margin; it is only defined for inline and floating elements, not for non-floating block-level elements. The inner top is the top of the content, inside any padding, border or margin. The bottom is the bottom of the element, outside any padding border and margin; it is only defined for inline and floating elements, not for non-floating block-level elements. The inner bottom is the bottom of the element, inside any padding, border and margin.
The width of an element is the width of the content, i.e., the distance between left inner edge and right inner edge. The height is the height of the content, i.e., the distance from inner top to inner bottom.
The width of the margin on non-floating block-level elements specifies the minimum distance to the edges of surrounding boxes. Two or more adjoining vertical margins (i.e., with no border, padding or content between them) are collapsed to use the maximum of the margin values. In most cases, after collapsing the vertical margins the result is visually more pleasing and closer to what the designer expects. In the example above, the margins between the two 'LI' elements are collapsed by using the maximum of the first LI element's 'margin-bottom' and the second LI element's 'margin-top'. Similarly, if the padding between the 'UL' and the first 'LI' element (the "E" constant) had been zero, the margins of the UL and first LI elements would have been collapsed.
In the case of negative margins, the absolute maximum of the negative adjoining margins is deducted from the maximum of the positive adjoining margins. If there are no positive margins, the absolute maximum of the negative adjoining margins is deducted from zero.
The horizontal position and size of a non-floating, block-level element is determined by seven properties: 'margin-left', 'border-left', 'padding-left', 'width', 'padding-right', 'border-right' and 'margin-right'. The sum of these seven is always equal to the 'width' of the parent element.
By default, the 'width' of an element is 'auto'. If the element is not a replaced element, this means that the 'width' is calculated by the UA so that the sum of the seven properties mentioned above is equal to the parent width. If the element is a replaced element, a value of 'auto' for 'width' is automatically replaced by the element's intrinsic width.
Three of the seven properties can be set to 'auto': 'margin-left', 'width' and 'margin-right'. For replaced elements, a value of 'auto' on 'width' is replaced by the intrinsic width, so for them there can only be two 'auto' values.
The 'width' has a non-negative UA-defined minimum value (which may vary from element to element and even depend on other properties). If 'width' goes below this limit, either because it was set explicitly, or because it was 'auto' and the rules below would make it too small, the value will be replaced with the minimum value instead.
If exactly one of 'margin-left', 'width' or 'margin-right' is 'auto', the UA will assign that property a value that will make the sum of the seven equal to the parent's width.
If none of the properties are 'auto', the value of 'margin-right' will be assigned 'auto'.
If more than one of the three is 'auto', and one of them is 'width', than the others ('margin-left' and/or 'margin-right') will be set to zero and 'width' will get the value needed to make the sum of the seven equal to the parent's width.
Otherwise, if both 'margin-left' and 'margin-right' are 'auto', they will be set to equal values. This will center the element inside its parent.
If 'auto' is set as the value for one of the seven properties in an element that is inline or floating, it will be treated as if it were set to zero.
Unlike vertical margins, horizontal margins are not collapsed.
Elements with a 'display' property value of 'list-item' are formatted as block-level elements, but preceded by a list-item marker. The type of marker is determined by the 'list-style' property. The marker is placed according to the value of the 'list-style' property:
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
UL { list-style: outside }
UL.compact { list-style: inside }
</STYLE>
<UL>
<LI>first list item comes first
<LI>second list item comes second
</UL>
<UL CLASS=COMPACT>
<LI>first list item comes first
<LI>second list item comes second
</UL>
The above example may be formatted as:
* first list item
comes first
* second list item
comes second
* first list
item comes first
* second list
item comes second
In right-to-left text, the markers would have been on the right side of the box.
Using the 'float' property, an element can be declared to be outside the normal flow of elements and is then formatted as a block-level element. For example, by setting the 'float' property of an image to 'left', the image is moved to the left until the margin, padding or border of another block-level element is reached. The normal flow will wrap around on the right side. The margins, borders and padding of the element itself will be honored, and the margins never collapse with the margins of adjacent elements.
A floating element is positioned subject to the following constraints (see section 4.1 for an explanation of the terms):
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
IMG { float: left }
BODY, P, IMG { margin: 2em }
</STYLE>
<BODY>
<P>
<IMG SRC=img.gif>
Some sample text that has no other...
</BODY>
The above example could be formatted as:
________________________________________ | | max(BODY margin, P margin) | ______________________________ | | | Some sample text | B | P | IMG margins that has no other | O | | _____ purpose than to | D | m | | | show how floating | Y | a | | IMG | elements are moved | | r | | | to the side of the | m | g | |_____| parent element | a | i | while honoring | r | n | margins, borders | g | | and padding. Note | i | |how adjacent vertical margins | n | |are collapsed between non- | | |floating block-level elements.
Note that the margin of the 'P' elements enclose the floating 'IMG' element.
There are two situations when floating elements can overlap with the margin, border and padding areas of other elements:
Elements that are not formatted as block-level elements are inline elements. An inline element can share line space with other elements. Consider this example:
<P>Several <EM>emphasized</EM> words <STRONG>appear</STRONG>.</P>
The 'P' element is normally block-level, while 'EM' and 'STRONG' are inline elements. If the 'P' element is wide enough to format the whole element on one line, there will be two inline elements on the line:
Several emphasized words appear.
If there is not enough room on one line an inline element will be split into several boxes:
<P>Several <EM>emphasized words</EM> appear here.</P>
The above example may be formatted as:
Several emphasized words appear here.
If the inline element has margins, borders, padding or text decorations attached, these will have no effect where the element is broken:
----------
Several |emphasized
----------
-----
words| appear here.
-----
(The "figure" above is slightly distorted due to the use of ASCII graphics. See section 4.4 for a description of how to calculate the height of lines.
A replaced element is an element which is replaced by content pointed to from the element. E.g., in HTML, the 'IMG' element is replaced by the image pointed to by the 'SRC' attribute. One can assume that replaced elements come with their own intrinsic dimensions. If the value of the 'width' property is 'auto', the intrinsic width is used as the width of the element. If a value other than 'auto' is specified in the style sheet, this value is used and the replaced element is resized accordingly (the resize method will depend on the media type). The 'height' property is used in the same manner.
Replaced elements can be either block-level or inline.
All elements have a 'line-height' property that, in principle, gives the total height of a line of text. Space is added above and below the text of the line to arrive at that line height. For example, if the text is 12pt high and 'line-height' is set to '14pt', an extra space of 2pt is added, namely 1pt above and 1pt below the line. Empty elements influence these calculations just like elements with content.
The difference between the font size and the 'line-height' is called the leading. Half the leading is called the half-leading. After formatting, each line will form a rectangular line-box.
If a line of text contains sections with different 'line-height' values (because there are inline elements on the line), then each of those sections has its own half-leading above and below. The height of the line-box is from the top of the highest section to the bottom of the lowest one. Note that the top and bottom do not necessarily correspond to the tallest element, since elements can be positioned vertically with the 'vertical-align' property. To form a paragraph, each line-box is stacked immediately below the previous line.
Note that any padding, border or margin above and below non-replaced inline elements does not influence the height of the line. In other words: if the 'line-height' is too small for the chosen padding or border, it will overlap with text on other lines.
Replaced elements (e.g. images) on the line can make the line-box bigger, if the top of the replaced element (i.e., including all of its padding, border and margin) is above the tallest text section, or if the bottom is below the lowest.
In the normal case, when there is only one value of 'line-height' throughout a paragraph, and no tall images, the definition above will ensure that baselines of successive lines are exactly 'line-height' apart. This is important when columns of text in different fonts have to be aligned, for example in a table.
Note that this doesn't preclude the text on two adjacent lines from overlapping each other. The 'line-height' may be smaller than the height of the text, in which case the leading will be negative. This is useful if you know that the text will contain no descenders (e.g., because it only contains uppercase), so the lines can be put closer together.
The canvas is the part of the UA's drawing surface onto which documents are rendered. No structural element of a document corresponds to the canvas, and this raises two issues when formatting a document:
A reasonable answer to the first question is that the initial size of the canvas is based on the window size, but CSS1 leaves this issue for the UA to decide. It is also reasonable to expect the UA to change the canvas size when the window is resized, but this is also outside the scope of CSS1.
HTML extensions have set a precedent for the second question: attributes on the 'BODY' element set the background of the whole canvas. To support designers' expectations, CSS1 introduces a special rule to find the canvas background:
If the 'background' value of the 'HTML' element is different from 'transparent' then use it, else use the 'background' value of the 'BODY' element. If the resulting value is 'transparent', the rendering is undefined.
This rule allows:
<HTML STYLE="background: url(http://style.com/marble.png)"> <BODY STYLE="background: red">
In the example above, the canvas will be covered with "marble". The background of the 'BODY' element (which may or may not fully cover the canvas) will be red.
Until other means of addressing the canvas become available, it is recommended that canvas properties are set on the 'BODY' element.
The current CSS1 properties and values cannot describe the behavior of the 'BR' element. In HTML, the 'BR' element specifies a line break between words. In effect, the element is replaced by a line break. Future versions of CSS may handle added and replaced content, but CSS1-based formatters must treat 'BR' specially.
Style sheets influence the presentation of documents by assigning values to style properties. This section lists the defined style properties, and their corresponding list of possible values, of CSS1.
In the text below, the allowed values for each property are listed with a syntax like the following:
Value: N | NW | NE
Value: [ <length> | thick | thin ]{1,4}
Value: [<family-name> , ]* <family-name>
Value: <url>? <color> [ / <color> ]?
Value: <url> || <color>
The words between "<" and ">" give a type of value. The most common types are <length>, <percentage>, <url>, <number> and <color>; these are described in section 6. The more specialized types (e.g. <font-family> and <border-style>) are described under the corresponding property.
Other words are keywords that must appear literally, without quotes. The slash (/) and the comma (,) must also appear literally.
Several things juxtaposed mean that all of them must occur, in the given order. A bar (|) separates alternatives: one of them must occur. A double bar (A || B) means that either A or B or both must occur, in any order. Brackets ([]) are for grouping. Juxtaposition is stronger than the double bar, and the double bar is stronger than the bar. Thus "a b | c || d e" is equivalent to "[ a b ] | [ c || [ d e ]]".
Every type, keyword, or bracketed group may be followed by one of the following modifiers:
Setting font properties will be among the most common uses of style sheets. Unfortunately, there exists no well-defined and universally accepted taxonomy for classifying fonts, and terms that apply to one font family may not be appropriate for others. E.g. 'italic' is commonly used to label slanted text, but slanted text may also be labeled as being Oblique, Slanted, Incline, Cursive or Kursiv. Therefore it is not a simple problem to map typical font selection properties to a specific font.
CSS1 defines the properties 'font-family', 'font-style', 'font-variant' and 'font-weight', 'font-size', 'font'.
Because there is no accepted, universal taxonomy of font properties, matching of properties to font faces must be done carefully. The properties are matched in a well-defined order to insure that the results of this matching process are as consistent as possible across UAs (assuming that the same library of font faces is presented to each of them).
(The above algorithm can be optimized to avoid having to revisit the CSS1 properties for each character.)
The per-property matching rules from (2) above are as follows:
Value: [[<family-name> | <generic-family>],]*
[<family-name> | <generic-family>]
Initial: UA specific
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentage values: N/A
The value is a prioritized list of font family names and/or generic family names. Unlike most other CSS1 properties, values are separated by a comma to indicate that they are alternatives:
BODY { font-family: gill, helvetica, sans-serif }
There are two types of list values:
Style sheet designers are encouraged to offer a generic font family as a last alternative.
Font names containing whitespace should be quoted:
BODY { font-family: "new century schoolbook", serif }
<BODY STYLE="font-family: 'My own font', fantasy">
If quoting is omitted, any whitespace characters before and after the font name are ignored and any sequence of whitespace characters inside the font name is converted to a single space.
Value: normal | italic | oblique
Initial: normal
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentage values: N/A
The 'font-style' property selects between normal (sometimes referred to as "roman" or "upright"), italic and oblique faces within a font family.
A value of 'normal' selects a font that is classified as 'normal' in the UA's font database, while 'oblique' selects a font that is labeled 'oblique'. A value of 'italic' selects a font that is labeled 'italic', or, if that is not available, one labeled 'oblique'.
The font that is labeled 'oblique' in the UA's font database may actually have been generated by electronically slanting a normal font.
Fonts with Oblique, Slanted or Incline in their names will typically be labeled 'oblique' in the UA's font database. Fonts with Italic, Cursive or Kursiv in their names will typically be labeled 'italic'.
H1, H2, H3 { font-style: italic }
H1 EM { font-style: normal }
In the example above, emphasized text within 'H1' will appear in a normal face.
Value: normal | small-caps
Initial: normal
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentage values: N/A
Another type of variation within a font family is the small-caps. In a small-caps font the lower case letters look similar to the uppercase ones, but in a smaller size and with slightly different proportions. The 'font-variant' property selects that font.
A value of 'normal' selects a font that is not a small-caps font, 'small-caps' selects a small-caps font. It is acceptable (but not required) in CSS1 if the small-caps font is a created by taking a normal font and replacing the lower case letters by scaled uppercase characters. As a last resort, uppercase letters will be used as replacement for a small-caps font.
The following example results in an 'H3' element in small-caps, with emphasized words in oblique small-caps:
H3 { font-variant: small-caps }
EM { font-style: oblique }
There may be other variants in the font family as well, such as fonts with old-style numerals, small-caps numerals, condensed or expanded letters, etc. CSS1 has no properties that select those.
CSS1 core: insofar as this property causes text to be transformed to uppercase, the same considerations as for 'text-transform' apply.
Value: normal | bold | bolder | lighter | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400
| 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900
Initial: normal
Applies to: all elements
Inherited: yes
Percentage values: N/A
The 'font-weight' property selects the weight of the font. The values '100' to '900' form an ordered sequence, where each number indicates a weight that is at least as dark as its predecessor. The keyword 'normal' is synonymous with '400', and 'bold' is synonymous with '700'. Keywords other than 'normal' and 'bold' have been shown to be often confused with font names and a numerical scale was therefore chosen for the 9-value list.
P { font-weight: normal } /* 400 */
H1 { font-weight: 700 } /* bold */
The 'bolder' and 'lighter' values select font weights that are relative to the weight inherited from the parent:
STRONG { font-weight: bolder }
Child elements inherit the resultant weight, not the keyword value.
Fonts (the font data) typically have one or more properties whose values are names that are descriptive of the "weight" of a font. There is no accepted, universal meaning to these weight names. Their primary role is to distinguish faces of differing darkness within a single font family. Usage across font families is quite variant; for example a font that you might think of as being bold might be described as being Regular, Roman, Book, Medium, Semi- or DemiBold, Bold, or Black, depending on how black the "normal" face of the font is within the design. Because there is no standard usage of names, the weight property values in CSS1 are given on a numerical scale in which the value '400' (or 'normal') corresponds to the "normal" text face for that family. The weight name associated with that face will typically be Book, Regular, Roman, Normal or sometimes Medium.
The association of other weights within a family to the numerical weight values is intended only to preserve the ordering of darkness within that family. However, the following heuristics tell how the assignment is done in typical cases:
The following two examples illustrate the process. Assum