How to increase space between dotted border dots

Solution 1:

This trick works for both horizontal and vertical borders:

/*Horizontal*/
background-image: linear-gradient(to right, black 33%, rgba(255,255,255,0) 0%);
background-position: bottom;
background-size: 3px 1px;
background-repeat: repeat-x;

/*Vertical*/
background-image: linear-gradient(black 33%, rgba(255,255,255,0) 0%);
background-position: right;
background-size: 1px 3px;
background-repeat: repeat-y;

You can adjust the size with background-size and the proportion with the linear-gradient percentages. In this example I have a dotted line of 1px dots and 2px spacing. This way you can have multiple dotted borders too using multiple backgrounds.

Try it in this JSFiddle or take a look at the code snippet example:

div {
  padding: 10px 50px;
}
.dotted {
  border-top: 1px #333 dotted;
}
.dotted-gradient {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to right, #333 40%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 20%);
  background-position: top;
  background-size: 3px 1px;
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
}
.dotted-spaced {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to right, #333 10%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 0%);
  background-position: top;
  background-size: 10px 1px;
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
}
.left {
  float: left;
  padding: 40px 10px;
  background-color: #F0F0DA;
}
.left.dotted {
  border-left: 1px #333 dotted;
  border-top: none;
}
.left.dotted-gradient {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, #333 40%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 20%);
  background-position: left;
  background-size: 1px 3px;
  background-repeat: repeat-y;
}
.left.dotted-spaced {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, #333 10%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 0%);
  background-position: left;
  background-size: 1px 10px;
  background-repeat: repeat-y;
}

<div>no
  <br>border</div>
<div class='dotted'>dotted
  <br>border</div>
<div class='dotted-gradient'>dotted
  <br>with gradient</div>
<div class='dotted-spaced'>dotted
  <br>spaced</div>

<div class='left'>no
  <br>border</div>
<div class='dotted left'>dotted
  <br>border</div>
<div class='dotted-gradient left'>dotted
  <br>with gradient</div>
<div class='dotted-spaced left'>dotted
  <br>spaced</div>

Solution 2:

Here's a trick I've used on a recent project to achieve nearly anything I want with horizontal borders. I use <hr/> each time I need an horizontal border. The basic way to add a border to this hr is something like

 hr {border-bottom: 1px dotted #000;}

But if you want to take control of the border and, for example increase, the space between dots, you may try something like this:

hr {
height:14px; /* specify a height for this hr */
overflow:hidden;
}

And in the following, you create your border (here's an example with dots)

hr:after {
content:".......................................................................";
letter-spacing: 4px; /* Use letter-spacing to increase space between dots*/
}

This also means that you can add text-shadow to the dots, gradients etc. Anything you want...

Well, it works really great for horizontal borders. If you need vertical ones, you may specify a class for another hr and use the CSS3 rotation property.

Solution 3:

You cannot do it with pure CSS - the CSS3 spec even has a specific quote about this:

Note: There is no control over the spacing of the dots and dashes, nor over the length of the dashes. Implementations are encouraged to choose a spacing that makes the corners symmetrical.

You can, however, use either a border-image or a background image that does the trick.

Solution 4:

This uses the standard CSS border and a pseudo element+overflow:hidden. In the example you get three different 2px dashed borders: normal, spaced like a 5px, spaced like a 10px. Is actually 10px with only 10-8=2px visible.

div.two{border:2px dashed #FF0000}

div.five:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  border: 5px dashed #FF0000;
  top: -3px;
  bottom: -3px;
  left: -3px;
  right: -3px;
}

div.ten:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  border: 10px dashed #FF0000;
  top: -8px;
  bottom: -8px;
  left: -8px;
  right: -8px;
}

div.odd:before {left:0;right:0;border-radius:60px}

div {
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;


  text-align:center;
  padding:10px;
  margin-bottom:20px;
}

<div class="two">Kupo nuts here</div>
<div class="five">Kupo nuts<br/>here</div>
<div class="ten">Kupo<br/>nuts<br/>here</div>
<div class="ten odd">Kupo<br/>nuts<br/>here</div>

Applied to small elements with big rounded corners may make for some fun effects.