Flash cards
Review the key moves
What is the main idea behind CSS Form Inputs?
Lesson checks
Practice each idea before moving on
Short Mimo-style checks built from this lesson's code, terms, and sequence.
Which statement best captures the main point of this lesson?
Complete the missing token from the example code.
___: 100%;Put the learning moves in the order that makes the concept easiest to apply.
Styling Form Input Fields
With CSS, you can style most of the different input types, like text fields, password fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, and file inputs. You can also style input labels and form buttons.
Some commonly used CSS properties for styling input fields, are:
- width
- padding
- margin
- border
- border-radius
- background-color
- color
- font-size
Style Input Width
The width property is used to set the width of an input field.
Tip
The default width of an HTML input text field, is 20 characters.
Here we set the width to 100%:
Example
input {
width: 100%;
}Live preview
The example above applies to all <input> 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..
Style Input Padding
The padding property is used to add some space inside the text field.
Tip
When you have several input fields after each other, you might also want to add some margin , to add more space around them:
Example
input[type=text] {
width: 100%;
padding: 12px;
margin: 10px 0;
box-sizing: border-box;
}Live preview
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.
Style Input Border
The border property is used to change the border size and color, and the border-radius property can be used to add rounded corners:
Example
input[type=text] {
border: 2px solid red;
border-radius: 8px;
}Live preview
If you only want a bottom border, use the border-bottom property:
Example
input[type=text] {
border: none;
border-bottom: 1px solid red;
}Live preview
Style Input Background Color and Color
The background-color property is used to add a background color to the input, and the color property is used to change the text color:
Example
input[type=text] {
background-color: #3CBC8D;
color: white;
}Live preview