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CSS Units

CSS Units

 

CSS Units

CSS has several different units for expressing a length.

Many CSS properties take "length" values, such as width, margin, padding, font-size, etc.

Length is a number followed by a length unit, such as 10px, 2em, etc.

Example

Set different length values, using px (pixels):

h1 {
  font-size: 60px;
}

p {
  font-size: 25px;
  line-height: 50px;
}

 

Note: A whitespace cannot appear between the number and the unit. However, if the value is 0, the unit can be omitted.

For some CSS properties, negative lengths are allowed.

There are two types of length units: absolute and relative.

Absolute Lengths

The absolute length units are fixed and a length expressed in any of these will appear as exactly that size.

Absolute length units are not recommended for use on screen, because screen sizes vary so much. However, they can be used if the output medium is known, such as for print layout.

Unit Description
cm centimeters
mm millimeters
in inches (1in = 96px = 2.54cm)
px * pixels (1px = 1/96th of 1in)
pt points (1pt = 1/72 of 1in)
pc picas (1pc = 12 pt)

* Pixels (px) are relative to the viewing device. For low-dpi devices, 1px is one device pixel (dot) of the display. For printers and high resolution screens 1px implies multiple device pixels.

Relative Lengths

Relative length units specify a length relative to another length property. Relative length units scale better between different rendering mediums.

Unit Description  
em Relative to the font-size of the element (2em means 2 times the size of the current font)  
ex Relative to the x-height of the current font (rarely used)  
ch Relative to width of the "0" (zero)  
rem Relative to font-size of the root element  
vw Relative to 1% of the width of the viewport*  
vh Relative to 1% of the height of the viewport*  
vmin Relative to 1% of viewport's* smaller dimension  
vmax Relative to 1% of viewport's* larger dimension  
% Relative to the parent element  

Tip: The em and rem units are practical in creating perfectly scalable layout!
* Viewport = the browser window size. If the viewport is 50cm wide, 1vw = 0.5cm.

Browser Support

The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the length unit.

Length Unit          
em, ex, %, px, cm, mm, in, pt, pc 1.0 3.0 1.0 1.0 3.5
ch 27.0 9.0 1.0 7.0 20.0
rem 4.0 9.0 3.6 4.1 11.6
vh, vw 20.0 9.0 19.0 6.0 20.0
vmin 20.0 12.0 19.0 6.0 20.0
vmax 26.0 16.0 19.0 7.0 20.0



 
CSS Units
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