CSS Links

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With CSS, links can be styled in different ways.

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Styling Links

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

Example

a {
color: hotpink;
}

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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

Example

/* 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;
}

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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

Text Decoration

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

Example

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:

Example

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:

Example

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;
}

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