CSS Links

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With CSS, links can be styled in different ways.

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Text Link Text Link Link Button Link Button

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Styling Links

Links can be styled with any CSS property (e.g. color, font-family, background, etc.).

a {
  color: hotpink;
}

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

/* 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:

• a:hover MUST come after a:link and a:visited
• a:active MUST come after a:hover

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Text Decoration

The text-decoration property is mostly used to remove underlines from links:

a:link {
  text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited {
  text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
  text-decoration: underline;
}
a:active {
  text-decoration: underline;
}

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Background Color

The background-color property can be used to specify a background color for links:

a:link {
  background-color: yellow;
}
a:visited {
  background-color: cyan;
}
a:hover {
  background-color: lightgreen;
}
a:active {
  background-color: hotpink;
} 

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Advanced - Link Buttons

This example demonstrates a more advanced example where we combine several CSS properties to display links as boxes/buttons:

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;
}