CSS Attribute Selectors

Style HTML Elements With Specific Attributes

It is possible to style HTML elements that have specific attributes, not just class and id.

	Note: IE7 and IE8 support attribute selectors only if a !DOCTYPE is specified.

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CSS [attribute] Selector

The [attribute] selector is used to select elements with the specified attribute.
The following example selects all <a> elements with a target attribute:

Example

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

Try it yourself »

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CSS [attribute=value] Selector

The [attribute=value] selector is used to select elements with the specified attribute and value.
The following example selects all <a> elements with a target="_blank" attribute:

Example

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

Try it yourself »

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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;
}

Try it yourself »

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

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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;
}

Try it yourself »

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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;
}

Try it yourself »

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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 has to be a whole word! 

Example

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

Try it yourself »

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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 has to be a whole word! 

Example

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

Try it yourself »

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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;
}

Try it yourself »

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More Examples of CSS Selectors

Use our CSS Selector Tester to demonstrate the different selectors.
For a complete reference of all the CSS selectors, please go to our CSS Selectors Reference.