Mastering CSS Inheritance: 4 Essential Values

Unlocking the Power of CSS Inheritance

Inheritance is a fundamental concept in software development, where children inherit properties and characteristics from their parents. This concept is not limited to biology; it also applies to CSS, where elements can inherit styles from their parent elements.

What is CSS Inheritance?

CSS inheritance allows child elements to inherit styles from their parent elements. When a property is not specified on a child element, it will automatically inherit the value from its parent element. This behavior is similar to how children inherit physical traits from their parents.

How Does CSS Inheritance Work?

CSS rulesets cascade down the CSS hierarchy from parent selectors to their child selectors. If a CSS property is not specified on a child element, it will inherit the value from its parent element. For example, if we set the color property to red on a parent element, all its child elements will automatically inherit that color.

Which CSS Properties are Inherited?

Not all CSS properties are inherited. Font-related properties, such as font-size, font-family, and font-weight, are inherited, as well as the color property. However, properties like height, width, border, margin, and padding are not inherited.

The Power of the inherit Keyword

The inherit keyword allows us to enable inheritance on non-inheritable CSS properties. When we set a property to inherit, it takes the value from its parent element. This applies to all CSS properties, not just inheritable ones.

Understanding initial, unset, and revert

In addition to inherit, there are three other keywords that play a crucial role in CSS inheritance: initial, unset, and revert.

• initial sets the property value to its default value, as defined in the browser’s default style sheet.
• unset resets the property value to its inherited value if it’s an inherited property, or to its initial value if it’s a non-inherited property.
• revert reverses the CSS default values to the browser user-agent styles.

By mastering these keywords, you can take control of CSS inheritance and create more efficient and effective stylesheets.

Take Your CSS Skills to the Next Level

In this tutorial, we’ve explored the power of CSS inheritance and the four main keywords that can help you toggle inheritance: inherit, initial, unset, and revert. With this knowledge, you can create more complex and nuanced stylesheets that take advantage of CSS inheritance.