CSS Attribute Selectors

Style HTML Elements With Specific Attributes

It is possible to style HTML elements that have specific attributes or attribute values.

CSS [attribute] Selector

The [attribute] selector is used to select elements with a specified attribute.

The following example selects all <a> elements with a target attribute:

Example

a[target] {
    background-color: yellow;
}

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CSS [attribute="value"] Selector

The [attribute="value"] selector is used to select elements with a specified attribute and value.

The following example selects all <a> elements with a target="_blank" attribute:

Example

a[target="_blank"] {
    background-color: yellow;
}

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CSS [attribute~="value"] Selector

The [attribute~="value"] selector is used to select elements with an attribute value containing a specified word.

The following example selects all elements with a title attribute that contains a space-separated list of words, one of which is "flower":

Example

[title~="flower"] {
    border: 5px solid yellow;
}

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The example above will match elements with title="flower", title="summer flower", and title="flower new", but not title="my-flower" or title="flowers".


CSS [attribute|="value"] Selector

The [attribute|="value"] selector is used to select elements with the specified attribute starting with the specified value.

The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that begins with "top":

Note: The value has to be a whole word, either alone, like class="top", or followed by a hyphen( - ), like class="top-text"!

Example

[class|="top"] {
    background: yellow;
}

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CSS [attribute^="value"] Selector

The [attribute^="value"] selector is used to select elements whose attribute value begins with a specified value.

The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that begins with "top":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example

[class^="top"] {
    background: yellow;
}

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CSS [attribute$="value"] Selector

The [attribute$="value"] selector is used to select elements whose attribute value ends with a specified value.

The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that ends with "test":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example

[class$="test"] {
    background: yellow;
}

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CSS [attribute*="value"] Selector

The [attribute*="value"] selector is used to select elements whose attribute value contains a specified value.

The following example selects all elements with a class attribute value that contains "te":

Note: The value does not have to be a whole word!

Example

[class*="te"] {
    background: yellow;
}

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Styling Forms

The attribute selectors can be useful for styling forms without class or ID:

Example

input[type="text"] {
    width: 150px;
    display: block;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    background-color: yellow;
}
input[type="button"] {
    width: 120px;
    margin-left: 35px;
    display: block;
}

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Tip: Visit our CSS Forms Tutorial for more examples on how to style forms with CSS.