Color Names Allowed In HTML/CSS - Stack Overflow

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Learn more about Labs Color names allowed in HTML/CSS Ask Question Asked 15 years, 2 months ago Modified 8 years, 11 months ago Viewed 5k times 3

I know and use a few color names like 'white', 'blue', 'red', is there a complete list of colors allowed in HTML/CSS ?

• html
• css
• colors
• html-lists

Share Improve this question Follow edited Jun 4, 2012 at 13:26 Manishearth 16.1k88 gold badges6060 silver badges7676 bronze badges asked Oct 12, 2009 at 5:00 eozzyeozzy 68.5k108108 gold badges284284 silver badges446446 bronze badges 4

• 2 erm, lmgtfy.com/?q=css+colors&l=1 – Peter Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 5:03
• 1 @nimbuz, why did you accept a wrong answer? that doesn't make the quality of SO better, if you just accept whatever answer. – markus Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 5:10
• All answers are more or less similar. – eozzy Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 5:14
• my answer says essentially the same thing as the one that is selected as the answer and was up a few minutes before the one selected as answer.... not only that but someone voted it down. :/ – sohum Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 14:23

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5 Answers 5

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CSS3-color has the complete 'Extended color keywords' list.

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 28, 2015 at 4:58 dayuloli 17k1818 gold badges7474 silver badges132132 bronze badges answered Oct 12, 2009 at 15:48 Ms2gerMs2ger 16k66 gold badges4040 silver badges3636 bronze badges 0 Add a comment | 3

There are a plethora of colors listed at http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_colornames.asp. There's also a cautionary note at the bottom:

Note: The names above are not a part of the W3C web standard.

The W3C HTML and CSS standards have listed only 16 valid color names: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow.

If you want valid HTML or CSS use the HEX values instead.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 12, 2009 at 5:02 John KugelmanJohn Kugelman 361k6969 gold badges546546 silver badges591591 bronze badges 1

• 1 This is no longer entirely true: HTML4 only lists 16 colors, but CSS3 lists a total of 147 valid color names—the same ones in SVG (which are mostly based on X11). Longer answer in a bit since I can’t deal with the return key in comments. – Eric A. Meyer Commented Jun 4, 2012 at 13:41

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The CSS Color Module Level 3, which is a full W3C Recommendation and therefore supersedes CSS2 where they conflict, lists the 16 HTML4 keywords as “Basic color keywords” and the 147 SVG keywords as “Extended color keywords”—the latter set of 147 being a superset of the basic 16, since they’re all included.

So the answer to your question is 147 names long, not 16; W3Schools, not surprisingly, has it wrong. There are also WAY more keywords actually recognized by browsers, but they’re not “allowed” in a legalistic sense even if they are in a practical sense. As a result, there might be slight differences between browsers when handling those keywords, since they haven’t been precisely defined in a specification.

(P.S. If you’re interested in a sortable table of all 147 extended keywords and their various numeric equivalents, I recently published one on my site along with some visualizations of the basic and extended keywords sets: color wheel and distribution chart.)

(P.P.S. The CSS3 Colors module was not a full Recommendation in 2009.)

Share Improve this answer Follow edited Jan 27, 2016 at 23:08 Zach Saucier 25.9k1212 gold badges9595 silver badges159159 bronze badges answered Jun 4, 2012 at 13:49 Eric A. MeyerEric A. Meyer 93066 silver badges2222 bronze badges Add a comment | 1

The W3C HTML and CSS standards have listed only 16 valid color names: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow.

From this site:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_colornames.asp

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Oct 12, 2009 at 5:02 sohumsohum 3,22722 gold badges4141 silver badges6363 bronze badges 3

• Umm.... why did this get voted down? My response was up before the one selected as the answer. – sohum Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 14:22
• Probably because you referenced w3schools.com, which is horribly out of date and often incorrect. – GregL Commented May 15, 2014 at 7:16
• Which was the same website referenced by the answer..... so what is your point exactly? – sohum Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:02

Add a comment | 0

There are actually 17 "standard" colors, according to W3 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/syndata.html#color-units

In addition, there are some built-in names for system colors: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/ui.html#system-colors

This 2nd set is deprecated in CSS3.

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Aug 11, 2011 at 17:21 chrischris 37.4k5454 gold badges160160 silver badges244244 bronze badges Add a comment |

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