Link is a connection from one web page to another web pages. CSS property can be used to style the links in various different ways.
States of Link: Before discussing CSS properties, it is important to know the states of a link. Links can exist in different states and they can be styled using pseudo classes.
There are four state of links given below:
- a:link => This is a normal, unvisited link.
- a:visited => This is a link visited by user at least once
- a:hover => This is a link when mouse hovers over it
- a:active => This is a link which is just clicked.
Syntax:
a:link {
color:color_name;
}
color_name can be given in any format like color name (green), HEX value (#5570f0) or RGB value rgb(25, 255, 2). There is another state ‘a:focus’ which is used to focused when a user uses tab key to navigate through the links.
Default value of links:
- By default the links created are underlined.
- When mouse is hovered above a link, it changes to a hand icon.
- Normal/unvisited links are blue.
- Visited links a colored purple.
- Active links are colored red.
- When a link is focused, it has an outline around it.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <title>CSS links</title> <style> p { font-size: 25px; text-align: center; } </style> </head> <body> </body> </html> |
Output:
CSS Properties of Links: Some basic CSS properties of links are given below:
- color
- font-family
- text-decoration
- background-color
color: This CSS property is used to change the color of link text.
Syntax:
a {
color: color_name;
}
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <title>Link color property</title> <style> p { font-size: 20px; text-align:center; } /*unvisited link will appear green*/ a:link{ color:red; } /*visited link will appear blue*/ a:visited{ color:blue; } /*when mouse hovers over link it will appear orange*/ a:hover{ color:orange; } /*when the link is clicked, it will appear black*/ a:active{ color:black; } </style> </head> <body> This link will change colours with different states.</p> </body> </html> |
Output:
font-family: This property is used to change the font type of a link using font-family property.
Syntax:
a {
font-family: "family name";
}
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <style> /*Inintial link font family arial*/ a { font-family:Arial; } p { font-size: 30px; text-align:center; } /*unvisited link font family*/ a:link{ color:Arial; } /*visited link font family*/ a:visited{ font-family:Arial; } /*when mouse hovers over it will change to times new roman*/ a:hover{ font-family:Times new roman; } /*when the link is clicked, it will changed to Comic sans ms*/ a:active{ font-family:Comic Sans MS; } </style> </head> <body> id="link">GeeksforGeeks</a> a Computer Science Portal for Geeks.</p> </body></html> |
Output:
Text-Decoration: This property is basically used to remove/add underlines from/to a link.
Syntax:
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <title>Text decoration in link</title> <style> /*Set the font size for better visibility*/ p { font-size: 2rem; } /*Removing underline using text-decoration*/ a{ text-decoration: none; } /*underline can be added using text-decoration:underline; */ </style> </head> <body> Portal for Geeks.</p> </body> </html> |
Output:
background-color: This property is used to set the background color of link.
Syntax:
a {
background-color: color_name;
}
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <title>background color</title> <style> /*Setting font size for better visibility*/ p{ font-size: 2rem; } /*Designing unvisited link button*/ a:link{ background-color: powderblue; color:green; padding:5px 5px; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; } /*Designing link button when mouse cursor hovers over it*/ a:hover{ background-color: green; color:white; padding:5px 5px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; } </style> </head> <body> GeeksforGeeks</a> a Computer Science Portal for Geeks.</p> </body> </html> |
Output:
CSS Link Button: CSS links can also be styled using buttons/boxes. The following example shows how CSS links can be designed as buttons.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html><html> <head> <title>Link button</title> <style> /*Setting font size for better visibility*/ p{ font-size: 2rem; } a { background-color: green; color:white; padding:5px 5px; border-radius:5px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; } </style> </head> <body> GeeksforGeeks</a> a Computer Science Portal for Geeks.</p> </body> </html> |
Output:
