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:

First Name

input {
  width: 100%;
}

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..

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:

First Name Last Name

input[type=text] {
  width: 100%;
  padding: 12px 20px;
  margin: 8px 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

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:

First Name

input[type=text] {
  border: 2px solid red;
  border-radius: 4px;
}

If you only want a bottom border, use the border-bottom property:

First Name

input[type=text] {
  border: none;
  border-bottom: 2px solid red;
}

Colored Inputs

Use the background-color property to add a background color to the input, and the color property to change the text color:

input[type=text] {
  background-color: #3CBC8D;
  color: white;
}

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:

input[type=text]:focus {
  background-color: lightblue;
}

input[type=text]:focus {
  background-color: pink;
}

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:

input[type=text] {
  background-color: white;
  background-image: url('searchicon.png');
  background-position: 10px 10px; 
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  padding-left: 40px;
}

Styling Textareas

Tip: Use the resize property to prevent textareas from being resized (disable the "grabber" in the bottom right corner):

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

select {
  width: 100%;
  padding: 16px 20px;
  border: none;
  border-radius: 4px;
  background-color: #f1f1f1;
}

Styling Input Buttons

input[type=button], input[type=submit], input[type=reset] {
  background-color: #4CAF50;
  border: none;
  color: white;
  padding: 16px 32px;
  text-decoration: none;
  margin: 4px 2px;
  cursor: pointer;
}
/* Tip: use width: 100% for full-width buttons */

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