Padding
Control the padding on one side of an element using the p
For example, pt-6 would add 1.5rem of padding to the top of an element, pr-4 would add 1rem of padding to the right of an element, pb-8 would add 2rem of padding to the bottom of an element, and pl-2 would add 0.5rem of padding to the left of an element.
div class="pt-6 . ">pt-6div> div class="pr-4 . ">pr-4div> div class="pb-8 . ">pb-8div> div class="pl-2 . ">pl-2div>Control the horizontal padding of an element using the px- utilities.
Control the vertical padding of an element using the py- utilities.
Control the padding on all sides of an element using the p- utilities.
Use the ps-* and pe-* utilities to set the padding-inline-start and padding-inline-end logical properties, which map to either the left or right side based on the text direction.
div dir="ltr"> div class="ps-8 . ">ps-8div> div class="pe-8 . ">pe-8div> div> div dir="rtl"> div class="ps-8 . ">ps-8div> div class="pe-8 . ">pe-8div> div>For more control, you can also use the LTR and RTL modifiers to conditionally apply specific styles depending on the current text direction.
Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover : py-8 to only apply the py-8 utility on hover .
div class="py-4 hover:py-8"> div> For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.
You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md: py-8 to apply the py-8 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.
To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.
By default, Tailwind’s padding scale uses the default spacing scale. You can customize your spacing scale by editing theme.spacing or theme.extend.spacing in your tailwind.config.js file.
module.exports = theme: extend: spacing: '5px': '5px', > > > > Alternatively, you can customize just the padding scale by editing theme.padding or theme.extend.padding in your tailwind.config.js file.
module.exports = theme: extend: padding: '5px': '5px', > > > > Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.
If you need to use a one-off padding value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.
Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.
Copyright © 2023 Tailwind Labs Inc.
CSS Padding
Padding is used to create space around an element’s content, inside of any defined borders.
CSS Padding
The CSS padding properties are used to generate space around an element’s content, inside of any defined borders.
With CSS, you have full control over the padding. There are properties for setting the padding for each side of an element (top, right, bottom, and left).
Padding — Individual Sides
CSS has properties for specifying the padding for each side of an element:
All the padding properties can have the following values:
- length — specifies a padding in px, pt, cm, etc.
- % — specifies a padding in % of the width of the containing element
- inherit — specifies that the padding should be inherited from the parent element
Note: Negative values are not allowed.
Example
Set different padding for all four sides of a element:
Padding — Shorthand Property
To shorten the code, it is possible to specify all the padding properties in one property.
The padding property is a shorthand property for the following individual padding properties:
If the padding property has four values:
- padding: 25px 50px 75px 100px;
- top padding is 25px
- right padding is 50px
- bottom padding is 75px
- left padding is 100px
Example
Use the padding shorthand property with four values:
If the padding property has three values:
- padding: 25px 50px 75px;
- top padding is 25px
- right and left paddings are 50px
- bottom padding is 75px
Example
Use the padding shorthand property with three values:
If the padding property has two values:
- padding: 25px 50px;
- top and bottom paddings are 25px
- right and left paddings are 50px
Example
Use the padding shorthand property with two values:
If the padding property has one value:
Example
Use the padding shorthand property with one value:
Padding and Element Width
The CSS width property specifies the width of the element’s content area. The content area is the portion inside the padding, border, and margin of an element (the box model).
So, if an element has a specified width, the padding added to that element will be added to the total width of the element. This is often an undesirable result.
Example
Here, the element is given a width of 300px. However, the actual width of the element will be 350px (300px + 25px of left padding + 25px of right padding):
To keep the width at 300px, no matter the amount of padding, you can use the box-sizing property. This causes the element to maintain its actual width; if you increase the padding, the available content space will decrease.
Example
Use the box-sizing property to keep the width at 300px, no matter the amount of padding:
More Examples
Set the left padding
This example demonstrates how to set the left padding of aelement.
Set the right padding
This example demonstrates how to set the right padding of aelement.
Set the top padding
This example demonstrates how to set the top padding of aelement.
Set the bottom padding
This example demonstrates how to set the bottom padding of aelement.
All CSS Padding Properties
Property Description padding A shorthand property for setting all the padding properties in one declaration padding-bottom Sets the bottom padding of an element padding-left Sets the left padding of an element padding-right Sets the right padding of an element padding-top Sets the top padding of an element padding
The padding CSS shorthand property sets the padding area on all four sides of an element at once.
Try it
An element’s padding area is the space between its content and its border.
Note: Padding creates extra space within an element. In contrast, margin creates extra space around an element.
Constituent properties
This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:
Syntax
/* Apply to all four sides */ padding: 1em; /* top and bottom | left and right */ padding: 5% 10%; /* top | left and right | bottom */ padding: 1em 2em 2em; /* top | right | bottom | left */ padding: 5px 1em 0 2em; /* Global values */ padding: inherit; padding: initial; padding: revert; padding: revert-layer; padding: unset;
The padding property may be specified using one, two, three, or four values. Each value is a or a . Negative values are invalid.
- When one value is specified, it applies the same padding to all four sides.
- When two values are specified, the first padding applies to the top and bottom, the second to the left and right.
- When three values are specified, the first padding applies to the top, the second to the right and left, the third to the bottom.
- When four values are specified, the paddings apply to the top, right, bottom, and left in that order (clockwise).
Values
The size of the padding as a fixed value.
The size of the padding as a percentage, relative to the inline size (width in a horizontal language, defined by writing-mode ) of the containing block.
Formal definition
- padding-bottom : 0
- padding-left : 0
- padding-right : 0
- padding-top : 0
- padding-bottom : the percentage as specified or the absolute length
- padding-left : the percentage as specified or the absolute length
- padding-right : the percentage as specified or the absolute length
- padding-top : the percentage as specified or the absolute length
Formal syntax