The Ultimate Guide to CSS Padding

What is CSS Padding?

Padding refers to the space between an HTML Document Object Model (DOM) element and its outer edge or border. In CSS, the padding property defines the area that separates the element’s content from its border, providing some space within the component. Similar to the padding property, the margin and border properties are also used to generate space for the element.

CSS Padding

CSS padding plays an important role in the overall design and experience of the website. Lack of padding will affect the overall appearance and readability of the content, making it look cluttered. Big brands utilize padding between elements to improve their website’s overall design and experience.

Let’s take a look at how Amazon uses padding on its website.

How Amazon uses padding on their home page

The Amazon website is well-designed and provides a smooth experience for the user. An important aspect of this brilliantly designed website is how well the elements are placed around the screen, with just enough space between them. Every element box has sufficient space that makes reading the content easier and distinguishes it from other elements, creating a sense of separation.

How Amazon uses padding on its product page

Now, take a look at Amazon’s product page. This webpage is filled with a lot of content like images, text, icons, buttons, etc. But even after that, the page does not appear crowded and cluttered. This is because every element has been provided with sufficient padding, making it readable for the user. Amazon’s website is a perfect example of how we can use padding to generate space, separation, and hierarchy between various types of content.

To learn more about CSS properties, follow this guide on Advanced CSS. Become familiar with all the CSS properties and master making your website look clean and appealing.

Note: Test your website across 3000+ browsers and OS combinations. Try TestMu AI Today!

  To understand how the padding gets applied to an HTML element, it is necessary to understand the CSS Box Model and how it affects the overall sizing of the HTML element.

Calculating The Width of An Element

Since the padding area and border area contribute to the element’s total dimensions, the final dimensions of the element will always vary from the actual dimensions. Hence, it is important to know how the browser calculates the dimensions of an element.

We might assume that a CSS property of width: 100px guarantees an element of width 100px will be rendered on screen. No! That’s the tricky part! CSS sizing does not work this way, and this is why so many developers fail to create an accurately sized layout for their web pages.

Let’s say we create a < div > element with a height of 100px and a width of 200px. We also specify a padding of 50px and a border of 10px on all sides. What will the actual width of the element be rendered on screen? 200px? No, it will be 320px. But why? Let’s understand what’s happening behind the scenes.

div{
   background-color: aqua;
   height: 100px;
   width: 200px;
   padding: 50px;
   border: 10px solid red;
}

How padding affects the dimensions of the element

Observing the above screenshot, by selecting the < div > element, we can see the dimensions to be 320px X 220px and not 200px X 100px. As discussed in the CSS Box Model section, every HTML element has a box that wraps around it. Hence, any padding or border added to any HTML element gets added to the actual element area, increasing its actual dimensions.

Look at the screenshot of the actual box model of the < div > element we created. You can see the padding and border area boxes surrounding the content area boxes.

CSS Box Model of < div >

So, by the above understanding, we can say that:

Final width = element’s actual width + padding on right + padding on left + border on right + border on left

For the < div > , Final width of 320px = 200px + 50px + 50px + 10px + 10px

Final height = element’s actual height + padding on top + padding on bottom + border on top + border on bottom

For the < div > , Final height of 220px = 100px + 50px + 50px + 10px + 10px

This is the reason why the final dimensions of the < div > element were 320px X 220px and not 200px X 100px. This can often cause undesirable results to the overall sizing of an element and results in recalculating the width every time the padding or border area changes. To avoid this behavior, we can use the CSS box-sizing property.

The CSS box-sizing property controls the width and height of the element. This property decides whether to include the padding area and border area inside the element’s actual size or on top of it. By setting the box-sizing: border-box property on an element, the browser treats the padding area or border area as a part of the total content area, making it a part of the original dimensions. This avoids adding extra height and width to the element’s total width.

div{
   background-color: aqua;
   height: 100px;
   width: 200px;
   padding: 50px;
   border: 10px solid red;
   box-sizing: border-box;
}

Output:

CSS box model after using the box-sizing property

As you can see in the above image, the total height and width of the element stayed the same even after we added a border of 10px and padding of 50px. This is because of the box-sizing: border-box; a property that treats the padding and border as part of the element’s content area.

This property is very important in making responsive design and creating fixed-size layouts. When an HTML element doesn’t appear as expected on a website, developers can perform debugging and understand how the browser resolves style calculations in the actual layout context.

To create fixed-size layouts and maintain the consistency of your web elements, ensure that buttons, images, and other elements have consistent spacing. You can perform visual testing, UI testing, and responsive testing to validate the UI alignment and ensure that your website is responsive no matter which device port is being viewed.

Difference Between CSS Padding And Margin

CSS padding and margin are fundamental concepts in CSS for controlling the spacing around elements. Padding refers to the space between an element’s content and its border, while margin is used to create space outside the border of an element. This section aims to clarify any remaining confusion by explaining their differences.

To learn more about spacing in CSS and how it contributes to displaying the content in an aligned fashion for easy readability and better user experience, follow this guide on using CSS spacing in detail.

In the below section, we will look into the demonstration using the CSS padding property to understand its working thoroughly.

Demonstration With The CSS Padding Property

Now that we have understood the CSS padding property and how to use it, let’s build a small web component to test our knowledge. For demonstration purposes, we will try to replicate the landing page of the TestMu AI website.

During this example, we will apply the CSS padding property to all the HTML elements we add to the webpage.

HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
   <meta charset="UTF-8">
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
   <title>Document</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">   
</head>
<body>
   <section>
       <nav>
           <div>
               <img class="logo" src="https://www.lambdatest.com/resources/images/logos/logo.svg" alt="">
               <ul>
                   <li>
                       Platform
                   </li>
                   <li>
                       Enterprise
                   </li>
                   <li>
                       Resources
                   </li>
                   <li>
                       Developers
                   </li>
                   <li>
                       Pricing
                   </li>
               </ul>
           </div>
           <div>
               <p>Login</p>
               <button class="button-secondary">Book a Demo</button>
               <button class="button-primary">Get Started Free</button>
           </div>


       </nav>
           <main>
               <div>
                   <h1>               
                       Digital Experience Testing Cloud Built For Enterprises
                   </h1>
                   <p>
                       Our Unified Testing Cloud enables you to deliver world class
                       digital experience with quality releases and help accelerate your release velocity.
                   </p>
                   <button class="button-primary">Contact Us</button>
               </div>
               <div class="hero">
                   <img src="https://www.lambdatest.com/resources/images/enterprise.webp" alt="" srcset="">
               </div>
           </main>


   </section>
</body>
</html>

CSS:

*{
   margin: 0;
   padding: 0;
   box-sizing: border-box;
}
body{
   height: 100%;
   width: 100%;
}


section{
   height: 100vh;
}
nav{
   display: flex;
   flex-direction: row;
   width: 100%;
   justify-content: space-between;
   padding: 20px 40px;
}
nav div{
   display: flex;
   flex-direction: row;
   align-items: center;
   gap: 20px;
}
ul{
   display: flex;
   flex-direction: row;
}
ul li{
   list-style-type: none;
   padding: 0 10px;
}


main{
   display: flex;
   flex-direction: row;
   height: 100%;
}
main div{
   width: 50%;
   height: 100%;
   padding: 50px;
   display: flex;
   flex-direction: column;
   justify-content: center;
   align-items: self-start;
   gap: 10px;
}
main div img{
   width: 80%;
}
.hero{
   justify-content: center;
   align-items: center;
}
main div button{
   width: auto;
}
h1{
   font-size: 3.5rem;
}
p{
   font-size:1.5rem;
}
button{
   padding: 10px 20px;
   border-radius: 5px;
   border: none;
}
.button-primary{
   background: linear-gradient(91.88deg,#2c57f3 .88%,#a506d8 98.71%);
   color: white;
}
.button-secondary{
   border: 1px solid black;
}

Result:

To display the result, we used the LT Browser feature offered by TestMu AI.

LT Browser lets you preview how a website appears on various mobile devices. With over 53+ device viewports, you can compare them side by side and synchronize interactions like scrolling, clicking, and navigation. It offers pre-installed device viewports for mobiles, tablets, desktops, and laptops.

To use LT Browser and validate the responsiveness of your application, click the download button below. Once the .exe file is downloaded, run it to access its features and capabilities.

DOWNLOAD LT BROWSER 2.0

Watch the video tutorial below and familiarize yourself with LT Browser features and functionalities.

Subscribe to the TestMu AI YouTube Channel and get the latest updates on various automation testing tutorials covering Selenium testing, cross-device testing, Browser compatibility, and more.

Browser Support for CSS Padding Property

The padding property in CSS is one of the most frequently used properties. Therefore, it is extensively supported by all old and modern browsers. We can freely use this property without worrying about a fallback; ensuring that your web designs are pixel-perfect across various browsers and devices is essential.

To validate it, you can use cloud-based platforms like TestMu AI, an AI-native test orchestration and execution platform that lets you run manual and automated tests at scale with over 3000+ real devices, browsers, and OS combinations. It provides a comprehensive cross-browser testing platform that allows you to test your website or web application across a wide range of browsers, including older versions.

You can confidently use CSS padding property without worrying about fallbacks, knowing your design will be consistent across all browsers. This platform helps ensure that your web design looks and functions as expected, no matter where it is viewed.

Conclusion

The CSS padding property is crucial for creating clean and aligned designs by adding spacing between HTML elements. Proper padding can greatly enhance a website’s overall appearance and readability, making it more appealing to users. Mastering the CSS padding property and its application within the context of the CSS Box Model is essential for becoming a proficient web designer. By using CSS padding effectively, designers can improve their websites’ overall look and feel, leading to a better user experience.