CSS Shorthand Properties

— 4 minute read

Today we are going to look into CSS shorthand properties. These are quick one-lines instead of writing multiple lines of CSS that do the same thing.

CSS Background shorthand

So let's start with the background property, we can write code like this:

.background {
  background-color: #efefef;
  background-image: url(https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590005024862-6b67679a29fb?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=979&q=80);
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-attachment: fixed;
  background-position: center;
}

Or we can write the shorthand as follows to do the exact same:

.background {
  background: #efefef
    url('https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1590005024862-6b67679a29fb?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=979&q=80')
    no-repeat fixed center;
}

As you can see, this is way fewer lines of CSS.

The order of the shorthand is: background: background-color | background-image | background-repeat | background-attachment | background-position.

CSS Font shorthand

We can also use the shorthand for Fonts, so the following:

.font {
  font-style: italic;
  font-variant: small-caps;
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 2.5rem;
  line-height: normal;
  font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;
}

We can make into a shorthand like:

.font {
  font: italic small-caps bold 2.5rem / normal Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;
}

The order for the font shorthand: font: font-style | font-variant | font-weight | font-size | line-height | font-family.

CSS Margin/Padding shorthand

The shorthand is very similar for margin and padding, and you probably have used these before. We can turn this:

.margin {
  margin-top: 5px;
  margin-right: 10px;
  margin-bottom: 5px;
  margin-left: 10px;
}
.padding {
  padding-top: 2px;
  padding-right: 4px;
  padding-bottom: 2px;
  padding-left: 4px;
}

Into this:

.margin {
  margin: 5px 10px;
}
.padding {
  padding: 2px 4px 2px 4px;
}

There are two shorthand functions here:

margin: margin-top | margin-right | margin-bottom | margin-left -- padding: padding-top | padding-right | padding-bottom | padding-left.

Or like so:

margin: horizontal | vertical -- padding: horizontal | vertical.

CSS Border Shorthand

We can turn this:

.border {
  border-width: 5px;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: green;
}

Into this:

.border {
  border: 5px solid green;
}

The border one we can also use for just one side as such:

.border-left {
  border-left: 5px dashed red;
}

The shorthand for borders is: border: border-width | border-style | color.

See this in action on Codepen.

See the Pen CSS Shorthand Properties by Chris Bongers (@rebelchris) on CodePen.

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