Top 78 Most Common CSS Interview Questions and Answers [For Freshers & Experienced]

Every industry has started the use of websites and applications to catch up with the pace of the rapidly transforming world. CSS is one of the most crucial parts of building and designing an attractive website.

Therefore the demand for web designers or UI/UX who have good knowledge of CSS with HTML has become crucial. There you don’t merely need to prepare for regular CSS interview questions, you need to prepare for HTML CSS interview questions as well. Cracking the CSS interview is the most important part of starting a career as a web designer.

So in this article, we’ve discussed a list of the most asked CSS interview questions for experienced professionals. A lot of topics starting from basic to advanced level CSS are asked in the interview and a guide to get familiar with the kind of questions asked is important. This list will help you clear the interview process and get your dream job.

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Top CSS Interview Questions and Answers

1. Define CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a styling language. It is the most simple styling language for HTML elements. Apart from being one of the most popular web designing languages in HTML, its application is also very common in XHTML

2. Mention the origin of CSS?

The beginning of style sheets, especially CSS, was the Standard Generalized Markup Language in the 1980s.

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3. What are the several forms of CSS?

The different forms of CSS are:

• CSS 1
• CSS 2
• CSS 2.1
• CSS 3
• CSS 4

4. State the restrictions of CSS?

Limitations of CSS are:

• No expressions
• Limitations of vertical control
• Ascending by selectors is not possible
• No column declaration
• Rules, targeting specific text, and styles not possible
• Dynamic behavior does not control pseudo-class

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5. List the benefits of CSS?

Advantages of CSS are:

• Bandwidth
• Accessibility
• Page reformatting
• Site-wide consistency
• Content separation from the presentation

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6. Define CSS frameworks?

CSS frameworks are pre-planned libraries, which allow much easier and more standard-compliant designing and styling of a webpage by using CSS language.

7. Who postulates the specifications of CSS?

CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium.

8. What are the ways in which CSS can be integrated as a website?

CSS can be integrated as a web page in three ways:

• Inline: CSS applied HTML element by attributing style.
• Embedded: The code can be placed within a Style element inside the Head element.
• Linked/ Imported: CSS can be kept in an external file and then linked via a link element.

9. What merits and disadvantages do External Style Sheets offer? 

Merits:

• Only one file can be utilised to take control of various documents each having different styles.
• Multiple elements of HTML can have multiple documents which can then have multiple classes.
• Composite situations, grouping, and methods as selectors can be used to group styles.

Demerits:

• For documents having different style information, an extra download is needed.
• External style sheets have to be downloaded to furnish the document.
• It is not practical for definitions of small style.

10. State the benefits and disadvantages of Embedded Style Sheets?

Merits:

• The extra download is not needed.
• In a single document, multiple types of tags can be created.
• Selector and grouping methods can be used to apply styles in complex situations.

Demerits::

• Cannot be used to control multiple documents.

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11. What is the meaning of the CSS selector?

CSS selector is a string equivalent of HTML using which a declaration or a set of declarations are declared. It is a link used for lining the Style sheet and HTML in the CSS selector.

12. What are the media types allowed by CSS?

Media furnishes the customisation and design of the documents. Media control can be used to retrieve and use external style sheets by loading them from the network.

13. Differentiate between physical tags and logical tags?

• Logical tags are useless for appearances while physical tags are a mark-up in presentation.
• Logical tags are old versions and concentrate only on content whereas physical tags are the new versions.

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14. State the difference between Style Sheet and HTML?

This is one of the many frequently asked CSS interview questions and answers for professionals. HTML lacks styling even though HTML has an easy structure method. Styling Sheets not only offer styling but also have better formatting options and browsing capabilities.

15. Describe ‘ruleset’?

Identification of selectors that can be linked to other selectors is done by the ruleset.

16. Is there Case-sensitivity in CSS?

There is no case sensitivity in CSS, although font families and URLs have case sensitivity.

17. Give the definition of the Declaration block?

A declaration block is a catalog of direction which consists of property, value, and colon within braces.

18. Enlist the various attributes of font?

They are:

• Font-style
• Font-variant
• Font-weight
• Font-size/line-height
• Font-family
• Caption
• Icon 

19. Why does inserting a file make importation easy?

Importing allows the feature of combining external sheets to be placed in various sheets. Different sheets and files can be used to get a different function.

20. What is the use of a Class selector?

Class selectors are selectors that have a unique attribution to a specific style. Declaration of HTML with association and style can be done through this.

21. What is the difference between a Class selector and an ID selector?

ID selector only chooses a single element that differs from the other elements, while a class selector chooses an overall block. An element can sometimes have both a class and an ID. ID’s are unique but classes are not.

22. Can you add more than one declaration in CSS?

A semicolon can be used to add more than one declaration in CSS.

23. What are Pseudo-elements?

Pseudo-elements add several special effects to selectors. CSS applies various styles in HTML mark-up but sometimes, extra styling or mark-up in the document is not possible. This is when a feature known as pseudo-elements is used which is available in CSS. It permits extra styling or mark-up without disturbing or tampering with the actual document.

24. How to overrule underlining Hyperlinks?

Underlining Hyperlinks can be overruled by using external style sheets and control statements.

25. Can CSS help in restoring default property value? 

In CSS, due to a lack of default values, reverting back to old values is not possible. The property has to be re-declared in order to get back the default property.

Read: Must Read Top 58 Coding Interview Questions & Answers

26. List the kinds of Media types used in CSS?

Different media have different properties in CSS because they are case insensitive.

They are:

• Aural (for speech and sound synthesisers)
• Print
• Projection
• Handheld
• Screen

27. Define CSS Box Model and state its elements?

This is undoubtedly one of the most popular CSS interview questions and answers for freshers. The CSS box model defines the layout and design of all the elements of CSS. These include: Margin, Border, Padding, and Content.

28. What is a contextual selector?

The contextual selector is used to select the special occurrences of an element.

29. Compare Hexadecimal color codes with RGB values?

A color can be detailed in two ways:

• By characters i.e. hexadecimal coding of colors with a combination of letters and numbers preceded by #.
• By a mixture of blue, green, and red where the value of the color can be specified.

30. Define Image sprites with context to CSS?

Image Sprites is the process of collaborating several images into one. It reduces the time taken in loading images and gives information more quickly.

31. Compare Grouping and Nesting in CSS?

Grouping:  In grouping, the code can be reduced by literally grouping selectors that have the same properties or values. 

Nesting: In nesting, a selector is specified within another selector.

32. How can the dimensions of an element be defined?

Dimension properties of an element can be defined by:

• Height
• Max-height
• Max-width
• Min-height
• Min-width
• Width

33. What is float property?

Using float property, an image can be moved along with the text to the right or to the left. Applying this property does not change the properties of the elements it is applied to.

34. How does the Z index function?

Sometimes, while positioning the elements of HTML using CSS, overlapping may occur. Z index helps in identifying and specifying the element that is overlapping. Z index’s default value is zero, but it can be a positive or a negative number.

36. Which of them is precedent: HTML procedures or CSS properties?

CSS properties are precedent over the HTML procedures. Even browsers with no CSS support, display the HTML attributes.

37. Define Inline style?

The Inline style is used on individual elements of HTML to add styling.

38. In CSS, how can comments be added?

/* and */ can be used to add comments in CSS.

39. What is Attribute Selector?

An attribute selector is a set of values, elements, and their parts.

40. Define property?

Property is a style that helps in influencing the CSS language. They contain corresponding properties or values within them. Eg. Font, which has different styles like italic, bold, etc.

41. What is at-rule?

At-rule is a rule which is applicable on the whole sheet and not partly. It is preceded by @ followed by A-Z, a-z, or 0-9.

42. What is the difference between CSS and CSS3?

CSS does not have the concept of modules. CSS3 incorporates a new feature where it can group CSS codes into convenient modules. Modules ensure that all styles for a specific component will reside in one place. Check this article for a detailed answer.

43. Name some of the CSS frameworks.

CSS frameworks are libraries to create webpage styling much easier. Some of them are Foundation, Gumby, Ukit, Bootstrap, Semantic UI, etc.

44. What is the Universal sector?

A universal selector matches with any element type’s name rather than choosing elements of a specific type.

For example:

style>

* {

color: blue;

font-size: 10px;

}

</style>

45. What is the use of the ruleset?

The ruleset is used to identify the selectors that are attached to other selectors. Here are the two parts of the ruleset.

• Declaration block: contains one or more declarations separated by semicolons
• Sector: indicates the HTML element that is to be styled

46. What are the elements of the CSS box model?

One of the top CSS basic interview questions and answers for freshers includes this question.

The CSS box model describes the layout and design of CSS elements. The elements are content such as text, images, padding, i.e., the area around the content, border (the area around the padding), and margin (space around the border).

47. What is the difference between CSS3 and CSS2?

The key difference between CSS3 and CSS2 is that CSS splits various sections into modules while supporting different browsers. It also contains new General Sibling Combinators that are in charge of pairing similar elements.

48. How can you integrate CSS into an HTML page?

There are three ways to integrate CSS into HTML: (1) use style tags in the head section, (2) use inline-styling and (3) writing CSS in a separate file and then link it to the HTML page by the link tag.

49. What is the RGB stream?

In CSS, RBG represents color streams – i.e., Red, Green, and Blue. The intensity of colors is characterized using numbers 0 to 256. This will allow CSS to have a wide range of visible colors.

50. What’s the purpose of developing CSS?

CSS was created to specify how websites look visually. It allows designers to differentiate the content from the structure of a website, which was previously impossible.

51. What is the distinction between a class and an ID?

Class is a method used to style HTML elements. They are not distinctive and contain several elements. ID, on the other hand, is unique and can only be designated to a single element.

52. What is Z-index?

This is one of the most common CSS interview questions. The Z-index specifies the stack order of elements that overlap each other. It has a default value of zero and can take negative or positive values. A larger z-index value is stacked on top of a lower index value. It acknowledges the values auto, number, initial, and inherit.

53. What are the advantages of CSS Sprites?

This is one of the commonly asked CSS interview questions and answers for professionals. With CSS Sprites, loading multiple images won’t be a problem.

1.       Blinking cannot be seen.
2.       Advanced asset downloading won’t take place until required.

54. How can you target h3 and h2 using the same styling?

You can target multiple elements by separating them with a comma.

H2, h3 {color: red;}

55. What are media types allowed by CSS?

This is one of the top CSS basic interview questions and answers for freshers. The different media types allowed by CSS include:

1.       Speech
2.       Audio
3.       Visual
4.       Tactile media
5.       Continuous or paged media
6.       Bitmap or Grip media
7.       Interactive media

56. How will you use CSS to manage image repetition?

You can use the background-repeat property to manage the image. For instance:

h3 {

background-repeat: none;

}

57. What is the property used for image scroll controlling?

The background-attachment property specifies if the background image is fixed or scrolls along with the remaining portion of the page. An example of a fixed background image is:

body {

background-image: url(‘url_of_image’);

background-repeat: no-repeat;

background-attachment: fixed;

}

58. Tell us about some of the font-related CSS attributes.

The font-related attributes are Font-style, variant, weight, family, size, etc.

59. What is responsive web design?

Responsive Design is a method of creating web pages that makes use of adaptable images, versatile layouts, and CSS media queries. This design approach aims to create web pages that identify the orientation and screen size of visitors and adjust the layout accordingly.

Also Read the Top 10 CSS interview questions

60. What is the general CSS nomenclature?

CSS styling commands are written in a value and property format. CSS includes a semicolon as a system terminator. The selector is wrapped in curly braces throughout the style. This creates a style sheet that you can implement on an HTML page.

61. What are the limitations of CSS?

• CSS cannot always guarantee browser compatibility; therefore, you must exercise caution when selecting the style selector.
• Because the parent selector tag is not available, you cannot select it.
• Because of their less browser-friendly behavior, some selectors can cause cross-browser issues.
• CSS cannot be used to request a webpage.

62. How to include CSS in a webpage?

1.       Using the link tag, you can include an external style sheet file as a CSS file to your HTML file.
2.       Add CSS styles included in your HTML page and then write it in a stand-alone stylesheet form of CSS.
3.       Include CSS directly in the HTML tag by simply adding an inline style to HTML elements.
4.      You can import an external stylesheet file as a new CSS file using the @import rule.
5. Can you tell about the different types of Selectors in CSS?

Universal Selector, ID selector, Class selector, Element type Selector, Child Combinator, General Sibling Combinator, Adjacent sibling combinator, Descendant combinatory, and Attribute selector.

63. What are the disadvantages of CSS?

This is undoubtedly one of the CSS interview questions for experienced professionals.

• CSS, from CSS 1 to CSS3, causes web browsers to become confused.
• What works in one browser may not work in another. The web developers must test the program for compatibility by running it in different browsers.
• There also exists an issue of security.
• If the changes appear, we must confirm their compatibility. A similar change affects all browsers.
• The world of programming languages is complicated for non-developers and beginners. CSS levels, such as CSS, CSS 2, and CSS 3, can be quite confusing.
• Compatibility with browsers (some style sheets are supported, and some are not).
• CSS behaves differently across various browsers. CSS is supported by IE and Opera using different logic.
• When using CSS, there may be cross-browser problems.
• There are various levels that can create confusion for non-developers and beginners.

64. What does ‘a’ in the RGBA mean?

RGBA stands for A (Alpha), which indicates the transparency of elements. The value of alpha lies between 0.0 to 1.0, where 0.0. stands for fully transparent, and 1.0 stands for not transparent.

h1 {

color:rgba (R, G, B, A);

}

65. What does margin: 40px 100px 120px 80px signify?

This is definitely one of the CSS basic interview questions and answers for professionals. CSS margins are used to create space around the element. We can create different sizes of margins for separate sides (top, right, bottom, left).

Margin properties can have the following values:

1.       Length in cm, px, pt. etc.
2.       Width % of the element
3.       Margin calculated by the browser: auto

Therefore, margin: 40px 100px 120px 80px denotes:

1.       Top = 40px
2.       Right = 100px
3.       Bottom = 120px
4.       Left = 80px

66. What is CSS overflow?

The CSS overflow handles the big content. It tells you if you need to clip content or add scroll bars. The overflow has the following property:

1.       Visible – The content is not snipped and is visible outside the element box.
2.       Hidden – The overflow is snipped, and the remaining content is hidden.
3.       Scroll – The overflow is clipped but a scroll is included to check the remaining content. The scrollbar can be either horizontal or vertical.
4.       Auto – It is to add a scrollbar whenever one is required.

Overflow-x and Overflow-y: These properties define how to modify element overflow. X handles horizontal edges while Y handles vertical edges.

67. Can you add 3D transformations to our project using CSS?

Yes, 3D transformations can be used to change elements. The elements in 3D transformation are rotated along the X, Y, and Z axes.

There are three main transformation types that are mentioned below:

1.       rotateX()
2.       rotateY()

3.       rotateZ()

    

68. How case-sensitive is CSS?

With the exception of segments that do not fall under CSS control, all CSS style sheets are case-insensitive. For example, case sensitivity caused by HTML attribute values “id” and “class,” font names, and URIs falls outside the scope of this specification.

69. In CSS, how can we add a shadow effect to our text?

The approach in this post is to add a shadow in CSS using the text-shadow property. This property accepts a list of shadows to be applied to the text, separated by commas. The default value of the text shadow is “none.”

70. How is adaptive design different from responsive design?

This is one of the CSS interview questions to assess your understanding of different web designs. In adaptive design, the primary focus is on making a website with different layout sizes. A responsive design aims to display website content to fit the browser space.

Adaptive design offers a lot of control because it helps create variations according to screen size. But the control available with responsive design is extremely less.

Creating an adaptive design is extremely time-consuming. You will have to put in a lot of effort in creating the best adaptive design layout. You need to consider multiple options according to the expectations of the end user.

But creating a responsive design takes a lot less time. You won’t face screen size issues with any type of content.

You can choose from six standard layouts for creating an adaptive design. For responsive design, you can leverage CSS media queries to create layouts according to particular devices.

71. How is padding and margin different from one another in CSS?

It is one of the most common CSS interview questions related to the properties controlling space around an element. While both padding and margin are meant for space control, they have different purposes.

Padding is the space between the border of an element and its content. It can help create additional space around content within an element. Padding is incorporated inside the background image of the color of the element. It will keep the border outside the main content.

Margin is helpful for defining space outside any element. It is for marking the space between an element and its surroundings. Therefore, it helps create a gap between different elements. The margin is always transparent. Since it is found outside the border, the background color or image of the element won’t have any impact on it.

72. How are block-level and inline elements different from one another in CSS?

The default display behavior of elements inside an HTML document is used to classify them into inline and block-level categories. The differences between these two categories of elements are as follows:

Inline Elements	Block-level Elements
They flow inside the text content and never initiate on a new line. These elements will take up width according to their content.	These elements always begin on a new line. They will occupy the entire width by default. You will find these elements vertically stacked on top of one another.
Width and height do not impact the inline elements. So, these properties are not applicable for inline elements.	Width and height properties are applicable for these elements. Therefore, block-level elements have a versatile type of layout control.
They only support the horizontal margin and padding. While the vertical margin and padding can be added, they won’t affect the flow of the element. Inline elements are a lot more visually consistent.	Block-level elements come with margin and padding on all four sides. The margin and padding also influence the surrounding content.

While answering these types of CSS interview questions, you should never skip examples. So, end your answer by providing some examples of inline and block-level elements.

73. How are the %, px, rem, and em units different in CSS?

It is one of the CSS interview questions to comprehend your familiarity with measurement units. All the four measurement units have distinct properties:

% (percentage): These values are always relative. So, the percentage can be measured in accordance with the height or width of the parent element. These units are a lot more responsive and flexible for measuring elements.

px (pixels): They indicate the absolute size or length according to screen pixels. One screen dot is 1 px. The real size of a pixel varies according to the screen resolution. But this unit helps in getting consistent measurements across different displays and devices.

rem: The rem value is determined according to the base font size of a document. It is possible to measure elements according to the total size of a page without considering the font size of parent elements.

em: This unit is determined according to the font size of the element or the closest parent element. The current font size of the document is the value of 1 em.

74. What is the process to override default CSS framework styles?

It is one of the CSS interview questions to comprehend your familiarity with measurement units. All the four measurement units have distinct properties:

% (percentage): These values are always relative. So, the percentage can be measured in accordance with the height or width of the parent element. These units are a lot more responsive and flexible for measuring elements.

px (pixels): They indicate the absolute size or length according to screen pixels. One screen dot is 1 px. The real size of a pixel varies according to the screen resolution. But this unit helps in getting consistent measurements across different displays and devices.

rem: The rem value is determined according to the base font size of a document. It is possible to measure elements according to the total size of a page without considering the font size of parent elements.

em: This unit is determined according to the font size of the element or the closest parent element. The current font size of the document is the value of 1 em.

75. How is the CSS grid layout better than other layouts?

It is one of the CSS interview questions or css interview questions for experienced professionals where you need to share your knowledge about the two-dimensional grid layout system. Using this layout, you will be able to create complex grids with ease. You will be able to develop responsive designs with this layout by controlling both rows and columns. The top advantages of this layout include:

• A simple grid structure that supports easy positioning and alignment of elements
• Helps in creating flexible and complex layouts without using extra libraries or frameworks
• Facilitates responsive designs through media queries and auto-placement of different items
• Efficiently uses white space and seamlessly adjusts grid tracks according to content and space

76.What do you understand by specificity and inheritance in CSS?

This is one of the CSS interview questions or CSS interview questions for freshers to test whether you are familiar with specificity and inheritance. CSS specificity indicates rules determining the appropriate style for elements with numerous defined styles. Specificity can resolve arguments when different selectors are targeting one element.

CSS inheritance enables styles to be passed down from the parent element. The child element will inherit these properties as long as they are not overridden by other styles.

The combination of a selector’s components can determine its specificity. The common components that come under consideration include inline styles, element type, and class. A scoring system helps in calculating the specificity. Here, some components will have a higher weightage than others.

77. What are the different values evident in the CSS position property?

This is one of the CSS interview questions or css interview questions for freshers to assess your understanding of the position property. The possible values to control the positioning of an element using this property include:

• Static: It is the default value according to the normal flow of the document.
• Relative: This value is relative to the normal position. You can move it with the left, bottom, right, and top properties.
• Fixed: This value is relative to the viewpoint. When you are scrolling the page, this value will remain constant.
• Absolute: At times, elements are placed relative to their nearest ancestor. If there’s no ancestor nearby, the element will be placed relative to the first block.
• Sticky: In this case, the element gets placed according to the scroll position of the user. It becomes fixed after a particular point is reached while scrolling.

78. What are the different values evident in the CSS position property?

This is one of the CSS interview questions or css interview questions for freshers to assess your understanding of the position property. The possible values to control the positioning of an element using this property include:

• Static: It is the default value according to the normal flow of the document.
• Relative: This value is relative to the normal position. You can move it with the left, bottom, right, and top properties.
• Fixed: This value is relative to the viewpoint. When you are scrolling the page, this value will remain constant.
• Absolute: At times, elements are placed relative to their nearest ancestor. If there’s no ancestor nearby, the element will be placed relative to the first block.
• Sticky: In this case, the element gets placed according to the scroll position of the user. It becomes fixed after a particular point is reached while scrolling.

So, these are the top css3 interview questions or css interview questions and answers for freshers help you to get successful.

Conclusion

This collection of CSS interview questions will immensely help you in preparing for a CSS interview. These are high-probability questions and are frequently asked in the viva. Make sure you have these answers ready in case any of these questions are asked by your interviewer.

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