- CSS Link Color Guide With Examples
- Contents
- CSS Link Color: Main Tips
- Link States
- CSS Link Color
- Text Decoration
- Background Color
- Link Buttons for a Navigation Menu
- CSS Link Color: Summary
- CSS Links
- Styling Links
- Example
- Example
- Text Decoration
- Example
- Background Color
- Example
- Link Buttons
- Example
- More Examples
- Example
- Example
- Example
- COLOR PICKER
- Report Error
- Thank You For Helping Us!
- How to Change Link Colors with CSS
- Inline method
- Example of changing a link color with the inline method:
- Result
- Internal method
- Example of changing the link color with the internal method:
- Example of using different link states:
- How to change the colors of the hyperlink underline and anchor text
- Example of changing a hyperlink underline and anchor text color:
- Example of styling links with the mentioned methods:
- Example of changing the link color with the «inherit» value of the color property:
- Example of styling links with the CSS text-decoration-color property:
- External method
CSS Link Color Guide With Examples
TL;DR – Properties can add CSS link colors according to link states.
Contents
CSS Link Color: Main Tips
- There are 4 link states: a:active , a:hover , a:visited , and a:link .
- To avoid behavior overlapping, these states should go in the following order:
- a:hover should go after a:link and a:visited .
- a:active should go after a:hover .
Link States
Different link states can have individual properties of link color in CSS. Developers choose to change the default style and color of URLs to make links match their web designs.
Here are the states you can change link color for with CSS:
- a:link – unvisited.
- a:hover – when the mouse pointer hovers over it.
- a:active – when a user clicks the link.
- a:visited – visited link.
In the following example, we have all four link states with different colors:
CSS Link Color
Links that have the same color as the rest of the text are more difficult to notice. You should always change the CSS link color to make it stand out.
To change link color, CSS value should be assigned to the color styling property. There are several ways to describe colors. You can use color names, RGB indicators ( rgb() ) or HEX indicators ( #ffffff ).
In the following example, a CSS link is assigned a color :
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Text Decoration
By default, links have underlines. To remove underline from link with CSS, use the CSS text decoration property.
It has four possible values: underline , overline , line-through , and none .
The example below makes CSS remove underline from link by adding text-decoration:none; . We set text-decoration values for each of the link states with CSS: only active and hover states have underlines:
a:link < text-decoration: none; > a:visited < text-decoration: none; > a:hover < text-decoration: underline; > a:active < text-decoration: underline; >
Background Color
Besides setting link color in CSS, it is possible to add a background-color property.
a:link < background-color: green; > a:visited < background-color: blue; > a:hover < background-color: red; > a:active < background-color: pink; >
The property is similar to the CSS link color. You can use the same value indicators as well.
Tip: it is common to set a background color on the hover state.
Link Buttons for a Navigation Menu
The control of the link color with CSS is not all. It is common for developers to style links as buttons (for instance, for a navigation menu of web sites).
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Here are the CSS properties necessary for styling buttons or tabs that lead to other parts of a web site:
- color – to set the color of the text which represents the link
- background-color – to add colors to the button
- padding – to determine the size of the button
- text-decoration – to remove underline from links
- text-align – to set the alignment of links
- display – to describe how your link should be shown
In this example, we combine these CSS properties to display links as buttons:
a:link, a:visited < background-color: purple; border: none; color: #FFFFFF; padding: 15px 32px; text-align: center; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.4s; transition-duration: 0.4s; text-decoration: none; font-size: 16px; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; > a:hover, a:active < background-color: #6D0062; >
Additionally, you can use font-family, font-size, font-weight, or others to match your web design.
CSS Link Color: Summary
- You can style cursors as well by adding cursor: pointer as one of the properties.
- Choosing the link color CSS depends on the overall design of websites. Make sure that modified styles of links do not make links more difficult to find.
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.