A CSS distance measurement is a number immediately followed by a length unit (px, em, pc, in, …)
CSS supports a number of length measurements units. They are absolute or relative.
Unit | Description |
---|---|
% | Define sizes in terms of parent objects or current object dependent on property |
em | Relative to the font-size of the element (2em means 2 times the size of the current font) |
rem | Relative to font-size of the root element |
vw | Relative to 1% of the width of the viewport* |
vh | Relative to 1% of the height of the viewport* |
vmin | Relative to 1% of viewport's* smaller dimension |
vmax | Relative to 1% of viewport's* larger dimension |
cm | centimeters |
mm | millimeters |
in | inches (1in = 96px = 2.54cm) |
px | pixels (1px = 1/96th of 1in) |
pt | points (1pt = 1/72 of 1in) |
pc | picas (1pc = 12 pt) |
s | seconds (used for animations and transitions) |
ms | milliseconds (used for animations and transitions) |
ex | Relative to the x-height of the current font |
ch | Based on the width of the zero (0) character |
fr | fractional unit (used for CSS Grid Layout) |
A whitespace cannot appear between the number and the unit. However, if the value is 0, the unit can be omitted.
For some CSS properties, negative lengths are allowed.