How to add Navigation bar in website using CSS?

By | July 21, 2022
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Navigation Bars

Having easy-to-use navigation is important for any web site.

With CSS you can transform boring HTML menus into good-looking navigation bars.

Navigation Bar = List of Links

A navigation bar needs standard HTML as a base.

In our examples we will build the navigation bar from a standard HTML list.

A navigation bar is basically a list of links, so using the <ul> and <li> elements makes perfect sense:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Note: We use href="#" for test links. In a real web site this would be URLs.</p>
</body>
</html>​

Result:

Now let’s remove the bullets and the margins and padding from the list:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>In this example, we remove the bullets from the list, and its default padding and margin.</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Example explained:

  • list-style-type: none; – Removes the bullets. A navigation bar does not need list markers
  • Set margin: 0; and padding: 0; to remove browser default settings

The code in the example above is the standard code used in both vertical, and horizontal navigation bars, which you will learn more about in the next chapters.

Vertical Navigation Bar

To build a vertical navigation bar, you can style the <a> elements inside the list, in addition to the code from the previous page:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  width: 60px;
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A background color is added to the links to show the link area.</p>
<p>Notice that the whole link area is clickable, not just the text.</p>
</body>
</html>

Result:

A background color is added to the links to show the link area.

Notice that the whole link area is clickable, not just the text.

Example explained:

  • display: block; – Displaying the links as block elements makes the whole link area clickable (not just the text), and it allows us to specify the width (and padding, margin, height, etc. if you want)
  • width: 60px; – Block elements take up the full width available by default. We want to specify a 60 pixels width

You can also set the width of <ul>, and remove the width of <a>, as they will take up the full width available when displayed as block elements. This will produce the same result as our previous example:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  width: 60px;
} 
li a {
  display: block;
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A background color is added to the links to show the link area.</p>
<p>Notice that the whole link area is clickable, not just the text.</p>
</body>
</html>

Result:

A background color is added to the links to show the link area.

Notice that the whole link area is clickable, not just the text.

Vertical Navigation Bar Examples

Create a basic vertical navigation bar with a gray background color and change the background color of the links when the user moves the mouse over them:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  width: 200px;
  background-color: #f1f1f1;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: #000;
  padding: 8px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
/* Change the link color on hover */
li a:hover {
  background-color: #555;
  color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Vertical Navigation Bar</h2>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Active/Current Navigation Link

Add an “active” class to the current link to let the user know which page he/she is on:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  width: 200px;
  background-color: #f1f1f1;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: #000;
  padding: 8px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
  color: white;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #555;
  color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Vertical Navigation Bar</h2>
<p>In this example, we create an "active" class with a green background color and a white text. The class is added to the "Home" link.</p>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Center Links & Add Borders

Add text-align:center to <li> or <a> to center the links.

Add the border property to <ul> add a border around the navbar. If you also want borders inside the navbar, add a border-bottom to all <li> elements, except for the last one:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  width: 200px;
  background-color: #f1f1f1;
  border: 1px solid #555;
}
​
li a {
  display: block;
  color: #000;
  padding: 8px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
​
li {
  text-align: center;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #555;
}
​
li:last-child {
  border-bottom: none;
}
​
li a.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
  color: white;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #555;
  color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Vertical Navigation Bar</h2>
<p>In this example, we center the navigation links and add a border to the navigation bar.</p>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Full-height Fixed Vertical Navbar

Create a full-height, “sticky” side navigation:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {
  margin: 0;
}
​
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  width: 25%;
  background-color: #f1f1f1;
  position: fixed;
  height: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
}
​
li a {
  display: block;
  color: #000;
  padding: 8px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
​
li a.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
  color: white;
}
​
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #555;
  color: white;
}
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-left:25%;padding:1px 16px;height:1000px;">
  <h2>Fixed Full-height Side Nav</h2>
  <h3>Try to scroll this area, and see how the sidenav sticks to the page</h3>
  <p>Notice that this div element has a left margin of 25%. This is because the side navigation is set to 25% width. If you remove the margin, the sidenav will overlay/sit on top of this div.</p>
  <p>Also notice that we have set overflow:auto to sidenav. This will add a scrollbar when the sidenav is too long (for example if it has over 50 links inside of it).</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
  <p>Some text..</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Horizontal Navigation Bar

There are two ways to create a horizontal navigation bar. Using inline or floating list items.

Inline List Items

One way to build a horizontal navigation bar is to specify the <li> elements as inline, in addition to the “standard” code from the previous page:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}
li {
  display: inline;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Home News Contact About

Example explained:

  • display: inline; – By default, <li> elements are block elements. Here, we remove the line breaks before and after each list item, to display them on one line

Floating List Items

Another way of creating a horizontal navigation bar is to float the <li> elements, and specify a layout for the navigation links:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  padding: 8px;
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Note:</b> If a !DOCTYPE is not specified, floating items can produce unexpected results.</p>
<p>A background color is added to the links to show the link area. The whole link area is clickable, not just the text.</p>
<p><b>Note:</b> overflow:hidden is added to the ul element to prevent li elements from going outside of the list.</p>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Example explained:

  • float: left; – Use float to get block elements to float next to each other
  • display: block; – Allows us to specify padding (and height, width, margins, etc. if you want)
  • padding: 8px; – Specify some padding between each <a> element, to make them look good
  • background-color: #dddddd; – Add a gray background-color to each <a> element

Tip: Add the background-color to <ul> instead of each <a> element if you want a full-width background color:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  padding: 8px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A background color is added to the list instead of each link to create a full-width background color.</p>
<p><b>Note:</b> overflow:hidden is added to the ul element to prevent li elements from going outside of the list.</p>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Horizontal Navigation Bar Examples

Create a basic horizontal navigation bar with a dark background color and change the background color of the links when the user moves the mouse over them:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #333;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: white;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover {
  background-color: #111;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Active/Current Navigation Link

Add an “active” class to the current link to let the user know which page he/she is on:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #333;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: white;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #111;
}
.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Right-Align Links

Right-align links by floating the list items to the right (float:right;):

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #333;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: white;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #111;
}
.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li style="float:right"><a class="active" href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Border Dividers

Add the border-right property to <li> to create link dividers:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #333;
}
​
li {
  float: left;
  border-right:1px solid #bbb;
}
​
li:last-child {
  border-right: none;
}
​
li a {
  display: block;
  color: white;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
​
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #111;
}
.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li style="float:right"><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Fixed Navigation Bar

Make the navigation bar stay at the top or the bottom of the page, even when the user scrolls the page:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {margin:0;}
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #333;
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  width: 100%;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: white;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #111;
}
.active {
  background-color: #04AA6D;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
<div style="padding:20px;margin-top:30px;background-color:#1abc9c;height:1500px;">
  <h1>Fixed Top Navigation Bar</h1>
  <h2>Scroll this page to see the effect</h2>
  <h2>The navigation bar will stay at the top of the page while scrolling</h2>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
  <p>Some text some text some text some text..</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Result:

Gray Horizontal Navbar

An example of a gray horizontal navigation bar with a thin gray border:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  border: 1px solid #e7e7e7;
  background-color: #f3f3f3;
}
li {
  float: left;
}
li a {
  display: block;
  color: #666;
  text-align: center;
  padding: 14px 16px;
  text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover:not(.active) {
  background-color: #ddd;
}
li a.active {
  color: white;
  background-color: #04AA6D;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
  <li><a class="active" href="#home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
  <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
  <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>​

Result:

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