- : The Textarea element
- Try it
- Attributes
- Styling with CSS
- Baseline inconsistency
- Controlling whether a textarea is resizable
- Styling valid and invalid values
- Examples
- Basic example
- Result
- Example using «minlength» and «maxlength»
- Result
- Example using «placeholder»
- Result
- Disabled and readonly
- Result
- Technical summary
- Specifications
- Browser compatibility
- See also
- Found a content problem with this page?
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- 15+ CSS Textarea Styles
- CSS Textarea Styles
: The Textarea element
The HTML element represents a multi-line plain-text editing control, useful when you want to allow users to enter a sizeable amount of free-form text, for example a comment on a review or feedback form.
Try it
The above example demonstrates a number of features of :
The element also accepts several attributes common to form s, such as autocomplete , autofocus , disabled , placeholder , readonly , and required .
Attributes
This element includes the global attributes.
This attribute indicates whether the value of the control can be automatically completed by the browser. Possible values are:
- off : The user must explicitly enter a value into this field for every use, or the document provides its own auto-completion method; the browser does not automatically complete the entry.
- on : The browser can automatically complete the value based on values that the user has entered during previous uses.
If the autocomplete attribute is not specified on a element, then the browser uses the autocomplete attribute value of the element’s form owner. The form owner is either the element that this element is a descendant of or the form element whose id is specified by the form attribute of the input element. For more information, see the autocomplete attribute in .
A string which indicates whether to activate automatic spelling correction and processing of text substitutions (if any are configured) while the user is editing this textarea . Permitted values are:
Enable automatic spelling correction and text substitutions.
Disable automatic spelling correction and text substitutions.
This Boolean attribute lets you specify that a form control should have input focus when the page loads. Only one form-associated element in a document can have this attribute specified.
The visible width of the text control, in average character widths. If it is specified, it must be a positive integer. If it is not specified, the default value is 20 .
This attribute is used to set the text directionality of the element in a manner similar to the dirname attribute of the element. Possible values include ltr for left-to-right and rtl for right-to-left. The default value is ltr . The value of the attribute is sent in the format .dir= , where is the name of the element and may be ltr or rtl .
This Boolean attribute indicates that the user cannot interact with the control. If this attribute is not specified, the control inherits its setting from the containing element, for example ; if there is no containing element when the disabled attribute is set, the control is enabled.
The form element that the element is associated with (its «form owner»). The value of the attribute must be the id of a form element in the same document. If this attribute is not specified, the element must be a descendant of a form element. This attribute enables you to place elements anywhere within a document, not just as descendants of form elements.
The maximum string length (measured in UTF-16 code units) that the user can enter. If this value isn’t specified, the user can enter an unlimited number of characters.
The minimum string length (measured in UTF-16 code units) required that the user should enter.
A hint to the user of what can be entered in the control. Carriage returns or line-feeds within the placeholder text must be treated as line breaks when rendering the hint.
Note: Placeholders should only be used to show an example of the type of data that should be entered into a form; they are not a substitute for a proper element tied to the input. See labels for a full explanation.
This Boolean attribute indicates that the user cannot modify the value of the control. Unlike the disabled attribute, the readonly attribute does not prevent the user from clicking or selecting in the control. The value of a read-only control is still submitted with the form.
This attribute specifies that the user must fill in a value before submitting a form.
The number of visible text lines for the control. If it is specified, it must be a positive integer. If it is not specified, the default value is 2.
Specifies whether the is subject to spell checking by the underlying browser/OS. The value can be:
- true : Indicates that the element needs to have its spelling and grammar checked.
- default : Indicates that the element is to act according to a default behavior, possibly based on the parent element’s own spellcheck value.
- false : Indicates that the element should not be spell checked.
Indicates how the control should wrap the value for form submission. Possible values are:
- hard : The browser automatically inserts line breaks (CR+LF) so that each line is no longer than the width of the control; the cols attribute must be specified for this to take effect
- soft : The browser ensures that all line breaks in the entered value are a CR+LF pair, but no additional line breaks are added to the value.
- off Non-standard : Like soft but changes appearance to white-space: pre so line segments exceeding cols are not wrapped and the becomes horizontally scrollable.
If this attribute is not specified, soft is its default value.
Styling with CSS
is a replaced element — it has intrinsic dimensions, like a raster image. By default, its display value is inline-block . Compared to other form elements it is relatively easy to style, with its box model, fonts, color scheme, etc. being easily manipulable using regular CSS.
Styling HTML forms provides some useful tips on styling s.
Baseline inconsistency
The HTML specification doesn’t define where the baseline of a is, so different browsers set it to different positions. For Gecko, the baseline is set on the baseline of the first line of the textarea, on another browser it may be set on the bottom of the box. Don’t use vertical-align : baseline on it; the behavior is unpredictable.
Controlling whether a textarea is resizable
In most browsers, s are resizable — you’ll notice the drag handle in the right-hand corner, which can be used to alter the size of the element on the page. This is controlled by the resize CSS property — resizing is enabled by default, but you can explicitly disable it using a resize value of none :
Styling valid and invalid values
Valid and invalid values of a element (e.g. those within, and outside the bounds set by minlength , maxlength , or required ) can be highlighted using the :valid and :invalid pseudo-classes. For example, to give your textarea a different border depending on whether it is valid or invalid:
textarea:invalid border: 2px dashed red; > textarea:valid border: 2px solid lime; >
Examples
Basic example
The following example shows a very simple textarea, with a set numbers of rows and columns and some default content.
textarea name="textarea" rows="10" cols="50">Write something heretextarea>
Result
Example using «minlength» and «maxlength»
This example has a minimum and maximum number of characters — of 10 and 20 respectively. Try it and see.
textarea name="textarea" rows="5" cols="30" minlength="10" maxlength="20"> Write something here… textarea>
Result
Note that minlength doesn’t stop the user from removing characters so that the number entered goes past the minimum, but it does make the value entered into the invalid. Also note that even if you have a minlength value set (3, for example), an empty is still considered valid unless you also have the required attribute set.
Example using «placeholder»
This example has a placeholder set. Notice how it disappears when you start typing into the box.
textarea name="textarea" rows="5" cols="30" placeholder="Comment text.">textarea>
Result
Note: Placeholders should only be used to show an example of the type of data that should be entered into a form; they are not a substitute for a proper element tied to the input. See labels for a full explanation.
Disabled and readonly
This example shows two s — one of which is disabled , and one of which is readonly . Have a play with both and you’ll see the difference in behavior — the disabled element is not selectable in any way (and its value is not submitted), whereas the readonly element is selectable and its contents copyable (and its value is submitted); you just can’t edit the contents.
Note: In browsers other than Firefox, such as chrome, the disabled textarea content may be selectable and copyable.
textarea name="textarea" rows="5" cols="30" disabled> I am a disabled textarea. textarea> textarea name="textarea" rows="5" cols="30" readonly> I am a read-only textarea. textarea>
Result
Technical summary
Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, Interactive content, listed, labelable, resettable, and submittable form-associated element. |
---|---|
Permitted content | Text |
Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. |
Permitted parents | Any element that accepts phrasing content. |
Implicit ARIA role | textbox |
Permitted ARIA roles | No role permitted |
DOM interface | HTMLTextAreaElement |
Specifications
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser
See also
Other form-related elements:
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This page was last modified on Jul 19, 2023 by MDN contributors.
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15+ CSS Textarea Styles
Hello there! In this article, you will find 15+ Textarea Styles Using Html And CSS with complete sources.
CSS Textarea Styles
We have the best handpicked CSS Textarea Styles. Custom-made free Textarea Styles using Html And CSS code and demo for you. So you can just simply copy and paste them into your project and implement it easily.
First, let’s quickly see what a text area is, The HTML element represents a multi-line plain-text editing control, useful when you want to allow users to enter a sizeable amount of free-form text, for example, a comment on a review or feedback form. Textarea can be used in many different circumstances as well.
Here are Textarea Styles Using Html And CSS with code examples from codepen.
Let’s see some cool CSS Textarea styles.
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