Part 7 - Borders & Outline | CSS

The CSS border properties define the borders around an element:

CSS Border Properties

The CSS border properties allow you to specify the style and color of an element's border.

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Border Style

The border-style property specifies what kind of border to display.
None of the other border properties will have any effect unless border-style is set.

border-style Values

none: Defines no border

dotted: Defines a dotted border

dashed: Defines a dashed border

solid: Defines a solid border

double: Defines two borders. The width of the two borders are the same as the border-width value

groove: Defines a 3D grooved border. The effect depends on the border-color value

ridge: Defines a 3D ridged border. The effect depends on the border-color value

inset: Defines a 3D inset border. The effect depends on the border-color value

outset: Defines a 3D outset border. The effect depends on the border-color value

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Border Width

The border-width property is used to set the width of the border.
The width is set in pixels, or by using one of the three pre-defined values: thin, medium, or thick.
Note: The "border-width" property does not work if it is used alone. Use the "border-style" property to set the borders first.

Example p.one { border-style:solid; border-width:5px; } p.two { border-style:solid; border-width:medium; }

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Border Color

The border-color property is used to set the color of the border. The color can be set by:

• name - specify a color name, like "red"
• RGB - specify a RGB value, like "rgb(255,0,0)"
• Hex - specify a hex value, like "#ff0000"

You can also set the border color to "transparent".
Note: The "border-color" property does not work if it is used alone. Use the "border-style" property to set the borders first.

Example p.one { border-style:solid; border-color:red; } p.two { border-style:solid; border-color:#98bf21; }

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Border - Individual sides

In CSS it is possible to specify different borders for different sides:

Example p { border-top-style:dotted; border-right-style:solid; border-bottom-style:dotted; border-left-style:solid; }

The example above can also be set with a single property:

Example border-style:dotted solid;

The border-style property can have from one to four values.

• border-style:dotted solid double dashed;
  • top border is dotted
  • right border is solid
  • bottom border is double
  • left border is dashed
• border-style:dotted solid double;
  • top border is dotted
  • right and left borders are solid
  • bottom border is double
• border-style:dotted solid;
  • top and bottom borders are dotted
  • right and left borders are solid
• border-style:dotted;
  • all four borders are dotted

The border-style property is used in the example above. However, it also works with border-width and border-color.

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Border - Shorthand property

As you can see from the examples above, there are many properties to consider when dealing with borders.
To shorten the code, it is also possible to specify all the border properties in one property. This is called a shorthand property.
The shorthand property for the border properties is "border":

Example border:5px solid red;

When using the border property, the order of the values are:

• border-width
• border-style
• border-color

It does not matter if one of the values above are missing (although, border-style is required), as long as the rest are in the specified order.

CSS Outline Properties

The outline properties specifies the style, color, and width of an outline.
The number in the "CSS" column indicates in which CSS version the property is defined (CSS1 or CSS2).

Property	Description	Values	CSS
outline	A shorthand property for setting all the outline properties	outline-color outline-style outline-width	2
outline-color	Sets the color of the outline around an element	color invert	2
outline-style	Sets the style of the outline around an element	none dotted dashed solid double groove ridge inset outset	2
outline-width	Sets the width of the outline around an element	thin medium thick length