Browsers' default CSS for HTML elements

It's different for each browser, so:

  • Firefox (Gecko): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/layout/style/res/html.css. Or, browse to resource://gre-resources/ and look at html.css.
  • Chrome/Safari (WebKit): http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/WebCore/css/html.css
    • Chrome (Blink): https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/master/Source/core/css/html.css
  • Internet Explorer (Trident), older versions: http://web.archive.org/web/20170122223926/http://www.iecss.com/

You can also look at the HTML5 Boilerplate stylesheet, which "normalizes the display of a lot of stuff without being a reset in the traditional sense". It also fixes quite a few bugs/inconsistencies.

It's also worth looking at: https://github.com/necolas/normalize.css/blob/master/normalize.css


A GitHub repository of all W3C HTML spec and vendor default CSS stylesheets can be found here

1. Default Styles for Firefox

2. Default Styles for Internet Explorer

3. Default Styles for Chrome / Webkit

4. Default Styles for Opera

5. Default Styles for HTML4 (W3C spec)

6. Default Styles for HTML5 (W3C spec)

Sample, per the default W3C HTML4 spec:

html, address,
blockquote,
body, dd, div,
dl, dt, fieldset, form,
frame, frameset,
h1, h2, h3, h4,
h5, h6, noframes,
ol, p, ul, center,
dir, hr, menu, pre   { display: block; unicode-bidi: embed }
li              { display: list-item }
head            { display: none }
table           { display: table }
tr              { display: table-row }
thead           { display: table-header-group }
tbody           { display: table-row-group }
tfoot           { display: table-footer-group }
col             { display: table-column }
colgroup        { display: table-column-group }
td, th          { display: table-cell }
caption         { display: table-caption }
th              { font-weight: bolder; text-align: center }
caption         { text-align: center }
body            { margin: 8px }
h1              { font-size: 2em; margin: .67em 0 }
h2              { font-size: 1.5em; margin: .75em 0 }
h3              { font-size: 1.17em; margin: .83em 0 }
h4, p,
blockquote, ul,
fieldset, form,
ol, dl, dir,
menu            { margin: 1.12em 0 }
h5              { font-size: .83em; margin: 1.5em 0 }
h6              { font-size: .75em; margin: 1.67em 0 }
h1, h2, h3, h4,
h5, h6, b,
strong          { font-weight: bolder }
blockquote      { margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 40px }
i, cite, em,
var, address    { font-style: italic }
pre, tt, code,
kbd, samp       { font-family: monospace }
pre             { white-space: pre }
button, textarea,
input, select   { display: inline-block }
big             { font-size: 1.17em }
small, sub, sup { font-size: .83em }
sub             { vertical-align: sub }
sup             { vertical-align: super }
table           { border-spacing: 2px; }
thead, tbody,
tfoot           { vertical-align: middle }
td, th, tr      { vertical-align: inherit }
s, strike, del  { text-decoration: line-through }
hr              { border: 1px inset }
ol, ul, dir,
menu, dd        { margin-left: 40px }
ol              { list-style-type: decimal }
ol ul, ul ol,
ul ul, ol ol    { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 }
u, ins          { text-decoration: underline }
br:before       { content: "\A"; white-space: pre-line }
center          { text-align: center }
:link, :visited { text-decoration: underline }
:focus          { outline: thin dotted invert }

/* Begin bidirectionality settings (do not change) */
BDO[DIR="ltr"]  { direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: bidi-override }
BDO[DIR="rtl"]  { direction: rtl; unicode-bidi: bidi-override }

*[DIR="ltr"]    { direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed }
*[DIR="rtl"]    { direction: rtl; unicode-bidi: embed }

@media print {
  h1            { page-break-before: always }
  h1, h2, h3,
  h4, h5, h6    { page-break-after: avoid }
  ul, ol, dl    { page-break-before: avoid }
}