CSS Syntax & Selectors | CSS for Beginners - Class 6 PDF Download

Syntax

Explanation

• The selector points to the HTML element you want to style.
• The declaration block contains one or more declarations separated by semicolons.
• Each declaration includes a CSS property name and a value, separated by a colon.
• Multiple CSS declarations are separated with semicolons, and declaration blocks are surrounded by curly braces.

Example
In this example all <p> elements will be center-aligned, with a red text color:

p {

  color: red;

  text-align: center;

}

Example Explained

• p is a selector in CSS (it points to the HTML element you want to style: <p>).
• color is a property, and red is the property value.
• text-align is a property, and center is the property value.

CSS Selectors

• CSS selectors are used to "find" (or select) the HTML elements you want to style.

We can divide CSS selectors into five categories:

• Simple selectors (select elements based on name, id, class)
• Combinator selectors (select elements based on a specific relationship between them)
• Pseudo-class selectors (select elements based on a certain state)
• Pseudo-elements selectors (select and style a part of an element)
• Attribute selectors (select elements based on an attribute or attribute value)

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The CSS Element Selector

Example
Here, all <p> elements on the page will be center-aligned, with a red text color: 

p {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

The CSS id Selector

• The id selector uses the id attribute of an HTML element to select a specific element.
• The id of an element is unique within a page, so the id selector is used to select one unique element!
• To select an element with a specific id, write a hash (#) character, followed by the id of the element.

Example
The CSS rule below will be applied to the HTML element with id="para1": 

#para1 {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

Note: An id name cannot start with a number!

The CSS class Selector

• The class selector selects HTML elements with a specific class attribute.
• To select elements with a specific class, write a period (.) character, followed by the class name.

Example
In this example all HTML elements with class="center" will be red and center-aligned: 

.center {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

• You can also specify that only specific HTML elements should be affected by a class.

Example
In this example only <p> elements with class="center" will be red and center-aligned: 

p.center {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

• HTML elements can also refer to more than one class.

Example
In this example the <p> element will be styled according to class="center" and to class="large": 

<p class="center large">This paragraph refers to two classes.</p>

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The CSS Universal Selector

• The universal selector (*) selects all HTML elements on the page.

Example
The CSS rule below will affect every HTML element on the page: 

* {

  text-align: center;

  color: blue;

}

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The CSS Grouping Selector

• The grouping selector selects all the HTML elements with the same style definitions.
• Look at the following CSS code (the h1, h2, and p elements have the same style definitions):

h1 {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

h2 {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

p {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

• It will be better to group the selectors, to minimize the code.
• To group selectors, separate each selector with a comma.

Example
In this example we have grouped the selectors from the code above: 

h1, h2, p {

  text-align: center;

  color: red;

}

All CSS Simple Selectors