padding Attribute | padding Property

Internet Development Index

Sets or retrieves the amount of space to insert between the object and its margin or, if there is a border, between the object and its border.

Syntax

HTML { padding : sPadding }
Scripting object.style.padding [ = sPadding ]

Possible Values

sPadding String that specifies or receives one of the following values.
length Floating-point number, followed by an absolute units designator (cm, mm, in, pt, pc, or px) or a relative units designator (em or ex). For more information about the supported length units, see CSS Length Units.
percentage Integer, followed by a %. The value is a percentage of the width of the parent object.
The property is read/write for all objects except the following, for which it is read-only: currentStyle. The property has a default value of 0 for all objects with the following exceptions:
TD 1
TH 1
The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) attribute is not inherited.
Expressions can be used in place of the preceding value(s), as of Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5. For more information, see About Dynamic Properties.

Remarks

This is a composite property that specifies up to four padding values, in the following order: top, right, bottom, left. If one width value is specified, it is used for all four sides. If two width values are specified, the first is used for the top and bottom borders, and the second is used for left and right borders. If three width values are specified, they are used for top, right/left, and bottom borders, respectively. Negative values are not allowed.
As of Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.5, this property applies to inline elements. With earlier versions of Internet Explorer, inline elements must have an absolute?A HREF="../properties/position.html">position or layout to use this property. Element layout is set by providing a value for the height property or the width property.

Examples

The following examples use the padding attribute and the padding property to change the padding of the object.
This example uses td as a selector and padding1 as a class in an embedded style sheet to set the padding for the td object.
<STYLE>
TD { padding:3mm 8mm }
.padding1  { padding:1cm }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER>
<TD onmouseover="this.className='padding1'"
onmouseout="this.className=''" ALIGN=middle>
<IMG src="sphere.jpg">
</TD>
</TABLE> 
This feature requires Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. Click the following icon to install the latest version. Then reload this page to view the sample.
This example uses inline scripting to set the cell's top and bottom padding to 0.5 centimeters and its left and right padding to 0.2 centimeters when an onmouseover event occurs.
<TD onmouseover="this.style.padding='0.5cm 0.2cm'"
onmouseout="this.style.padding=''" ALIGN=middle>
<IMG src="sphere.jpeg">
</TD>
This feature requires Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. Click the following icon to install the latest version. Then reload this page to view the sample.

Standards Information

This property is defined in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Level 1 (CSS1) .

Applies To

A, ACRONYM, ADDRESS, APPLET, B, BDO, BIG, BLOCKQUOTE, BODY, BUTTON, CAPTION, CENTER, CITE, CODE, COL, COLGROUP, currentStyle, CUSTOM, DD, defaults, DEL, DFN, DIR, DIV, DL, DT, EM, EMBED, FIELDSET, FONT, FORM, FRAME, hn, HR, I, IMG, INPUT type=button, INPUT type=checkbox, INPUT type=file, INPUT type=image, INPUT type=password, INPUT type=radio, INPUT type=reset, INPUT type=submit, INPUT type=text, INS, KBD, LABEL, LEGEND, LI, LISTING, MARQUEE, MENU, nextID, NOBR, OBJECT, OL, P, PLAINTEXT, PRE, Q, RT, RUBY, runtimeStyle, S, SAMP, SELECT, SMALL, SPAN, STRIKE, STRONG, style, SUB, SUP, TABLE, TD, TEXTAREA, TH, TT, U, UL, VAR, XMP