- CSS Forms
- Styling Input Fields
- Example
- Padded Inputs
- Example
- Bordered Inputs
- Example
- Example
- Colored Inputs
- Example
- Focused Inputs
- Example
- Example
- Input with icon/image
- Example
- Animated Search Input
- Example
- Styling Textareas
- Example
- Styling Select Menus
- Example
- Styling Input Buttons
- Example
- Responsive Form
- Aligned Form
- HTML Tag
- Browser Support
- Attributes
- Global Attributes
- Event Attributes
- More Examples
- Example
CSS Forms
The look of an HTML form can be greatly improved with CSS:
Styling Input Fields
Use the width property to determine the width of the input field:
Example
The example above applies to all elements. If you only want to style a specific input type, you can use attribute selectors:
- input[type=text] — will only select text fields
- input[type=password] — will only select password fields
- input[type=number] — will only select number fields
- etc..
Padded Inputs
Use the padding property to add space inside the text field.
Tip: When you have many inputs after each other, you might also want to add some margin , to add more space outside of them:
Example
Note that we have set the box-sizing property to border-box . This makes sure that the padding and eventually borders are included in the total width and height of the elements.
Read more about the box-sizing property in our CSS Box Sizing chapter.
Bordered Inputs
Use the border property to change the border size and color, and use the border-radius property to add rounded corners:
Example
If you only want a bottom border, use the border-bottom property:
Example
Colored Inputs
Use the background-color property to add a background color to the input, and the color property to change the text color:
Example
Focused Inputs
By default, some browsers will add a blue outline around the input when it gets focus (clicked on). You can remove this behavior by adding outline: none; to the input.
Use the :focus selector to do something with the input field when it gets focus:
Example
Example
Input with icon/image
If you want an icon inside the input, use the background-image property and position it with the background-position property. Also notice that we add a large left padding to reserve the space of the icon:
Example
input[type=text] <
background-color: white;
background-image: url(‘searchicon.png’);
background-position: 10px 10px;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
padding-left: 40px;
>
Animated Search Input
In this example we use the CSS transition property to animate the width of the search input when it gets focus. You will learn more about the transition property later, in our CSS Transitions chapter.
Example
input[type=text] <
transition: width 0.4s ease-in-out;
>
input[type=text]:focus width: 100%;
>
Styling Textareas
Tip: Use the resize property to prevent textareas from being resized (disable the «grabber» in the bottom right corner):
Example
textarea <
width: 100%;
height: 150px;
padding: 12px 20px;
box-sizing: border-box;
border: 2px solid #ccc;
border-radius: 4px;
background-color: #f8f8f8;
resize: none;
>
Styling Select Menus
Example
select <
width: 100%;
padding: 16px 20px;
border: none;
border-radius: 4px;
background-color: #f1f1f1;
>
Styling Input Buttons
Example
input[type=button], input[type=submit], input[type=reset] <
background-color: #04AA6D;
border: none;
color: white;
padding: 16px 32px;
text-decoration: none;
margin: 4px 2px;
cursor: pointer;
>
/* Tip: use width: 100% for full-width buttons */
For more information about how to style buttons with CSS, read our CSS Buttons Tutorial.
Responsive Form
Resize the browser window to see the effect. When the screen is less than 600px wide, make the two columns stack on top of each other instead of next to each other.
Advanced: The following example uses media queries to create a responsive form. You will learn more about this in a later chapter.
Aligned Form
An example of how to style labels together with inputs to create a horizontal aligned form:
HTML Tag
The tag defines a multi-line text input control.
The element is often used in a form, to collect user inputs like comments or reviews.
A text area can hold an unlimited number of characters, and the text renders in a fixed-width font (usually Courier).
The size of a text area is specified by the cols and rows attributes (or with CSS).
The name attribute is needed to reference the form data after the form is submitted (if you omit the name attribute, no data from the text area will be submitted).
The id attribute is needed to associate the text area with a label.
Browser Support
Attributes
Attribute | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
autofocus | autofocus | Specifies that a text area should automatically get focus when the page loads |
cols | number | Specifies the visible width of a text area |
dirname | textareaname.dir | Specifies that the text direction of the textarea will be submitted |
disabled | disabled | Specifies that a text area should be disabled |
form | form_id | Specifies which form the text area belongs to |
maxlength | number | Specifies the maximum number of characters allowed in the text area |
name | text | Specifies a name for a text area |
placeholder | text | Specifies a short hint that describes the expected value of a text area |
readonly | readonly | Specifies that a text area should be read-only |
required | required | Specifies that a text area is required/must be filled out |
rows | number | Specifies the visible number of lines in a text area |
wrap | hard soft | Specifies how the text in a text area is to be wrapped when submitted in a form |
Global Attributes
Event Attributes
More Examples
Example
Disable default resize option: