CSS Padding

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 27, 2023 8:21 am

CSS Padding

Padding is used to create space around an element's content, inside of any defined borders.

This element has a padding of 70px.

Try it Yourself »

CSS Padding
The CSS padding properties are used to generate space around
an element's content, inside of any defined borders.
With CSS, you have full control over the padding. There are properties
for setting the padding for each side of an element (top, right, bottom, and left).

Padding - Individual Sides
CSS has properties for specifying the padding for each
side of an element:

padding-top
padding-right
padding-bottom
padding-left

All the padding properties can have the following values:

length - specifies a padding in px, pt, cm, etc.
% - specifies a padding in % of the width of the containing element
inherit - specifies that the padding should be inherited from the parent element

Note: Negative values are not allowed.

Example
Set different padding for all four sides of a <div> element:

div {
padding-top: 50px;
  padding-right: 30px;
  padding-bottom: 50px;
  padding-left: 80px;}
Try it Yourself »

Padding - Shorthand Property
To shorten the code, it is possible to specify all the padding properties in
one property.
The padding property is a shorthand property for the following individual
padding properties:

padding-top
padding-right
padding-bottom
padding-left

So, here is how it works:
If the padding property has four values:

padding: 25px 50px 75px 100px;
top padding is 25px
right padding is 50px
bottom padding is 75px
left padding is 100px

Example
Use the padding shorthand property with four values:

div {
padding: 25px 50px 75px 100px;}
Try it Yourself »

If the padding property has three values:

padding: 25px 50px 75px;
top padding is 25px
right and left paddings are 50px
bottom padding is 75px

Example
Use the padding shorthand property with three values:

div {
padding: 25px 50px 75px;}
Try it Yourself »

If the padding property has two values:

padding: 25px 50px;top and bottom paddings are 25px
right and left paddings are 50px

Example
Use the padding shorthand property with two values:

div {
padding: 25px 50px;}
Try it Yourself »

If the padding property has one value:

padding: 25px;all four paddings are 25px

Example
Use the padding shorthand property with one value:

div {
padding: 25px;}
Try it Yourself »

Padding and Element Width
The CSS width property specifies the width of the element's content area. The
content area is the portion inside the padding, border, and margin of an element
(the box model).
So, if an element has a specified width, the padding added to that element will
be added to the total width of the element. This is often an undesirable result.

Example
Here, the <div> element is given a width of 300px.
However, the actual width of the <div> element will be 350px (300px +
25px of left padding + 25px of right padding):

div {  width: 300px;  padding: 25px;}
Try it Yourself »

To keep the width at 300px, no matter the amount of padding, you can use the
box-sizing property. This causes the element to maintain its actual width; if
you increase the padding, the available content space will decrease.

Example
Use the box-sizing property to keep the width at 300px, no matter the
amount of padding:

div { width: 300px;  padding: 25px;  box-sizing: border-box;}
Try it Yourself »

More Examples
Set the left padding
This example demonstrates how to set the left padding of a <p> element.
Set the right padding
This example demonstrates how to set the right padding of a <p> element.
Set the top padding
This example demonstrates how to set the top padding of a <p> element.
Set the bottom padding
This example demonstrates how to set the bottom padding of a <p> element.

Test Yourself With Exercises

Exercise:
Set the top padding of the <h1> element to 30 pixels.

<style>
h1 {
: 30px;
}
</style>

<body>
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
</body>

Submit Answer »
Start the Exercise

All CSS Padding Properties

Property
Description

padding
A shorthand property for setting all the padding properties in one declaration

padding-bottom
Sets the bottom padding of an element

padding-left
Sets the left padding of an element

padding-right
Sets the right padding of an element

padding-top
Sets the top padding of an element

★
+1

Reference: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_padding.asp