Minimal CSS Reset

Published on June 21, 2017

Your CSS reset rules don’t have to be a mile long, and most modern browsers are now pretty uniform with their base layout. Below you’ll find what I judge to be a good minimal effective dose for a reset. Just copy it in your new projects and you’ll be up and running.

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Here’s the CSS reset:

html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  font-size: 16px;
}

*, *:before, *:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}

body, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ol, ul {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  font-weight: normal;
}

ol, ul {
  list-style: none;
}

img {
  max-width: 100%;
  height: auto;
}

A few things to note

As you can see, I’ve included a rule so that images are responsive by default.
Arguably the most important part of this CSS reset is the box-sizing: border-box, as this will ensure consistent and predictable sizing. The default value of content-box doesn’t account for the padding or border.
You can remove the rule for ol and ul if you want to keep the default bullet points for your lists.
With font-weight: normal headings won’t be bolded by default. Remove that if you don’t mind the default look.
I’ve set the default font size to be 16px. Everything else can be specified in rem units and it will be based off of that 16px. Then, if you want to adjust globally to make the text a little larger overall, you can change the base rule for something like 17 or 18px.

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Alligator

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Alligator.io is a developer-focused resource that offers tutorials and insights on a wide range of modern front-end technologies, including Angular 2+, Vue.js, React, TypeScript, Ionic, and JavaScript.

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