Typographic scale

The entire typographic grid is based on two Less variables in our variables.less file: @baseFontSize and @baseLineHeight. The first is the base font-size used throughout and the second is the base line-height.

We use those variables, and some math, to create the margins, paddings, and line-heights of all our type and more.

Example body text

Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula.

Lead body copy

Make a paragraph stand out by adding .lead.

Vivamus sagittis lacus vel augue laoreet rutrum faucibus dolor auctor. Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus.

Using emphasis

Fusce dapibus, tellus ac cursus commodo, tortor mauris condimentum nibh, ut fermentum massa justo sit amet risus. Maecenas faucibus mollis interdum. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.

Note: Feel free to use <b> and <i> in HTML5, but their usage has changed a bit. <b> is meant to highlight words or phrases without conveying additional importance while <i> is mostly for voice, technical terms, etc.

Example addresses

Here are two examples of how the <address> tag can be used:

Example abbreviations

Abbreviations with a title attribute have a light dotted bottom border and a help cursor on hover. This gives users extra indication something will be shown on hover.

Add the initialism class to an abbreviation to increase typographic harmony by giving it a slightly smaller text size.

HTML is the best thing since sliced bread.

An abbreviation of the word attribute is attr.

To include a blockquote, wrap <blockquote> around any HTML as the quote. For straight quotes we recommend a <p>.

Include an optional <small> element to cite your source and you’ll get an em dash — before it for styling purposes.

<blockquote>
  <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer posuere erat a ante venenatis.</p>
  <small>Someone famous</small>
</blockquote>

Default blockquotes are styled as such:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer posuere erat a ante venenatis.

Someone famous in Body of work

To float your blockquote to the right, add class="pull-right":

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer posuere erat a ante venenatis.

Someone famous in Body of work

Unordered

<ul>

• Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
• Consectetur adipiscing elit
• Integer molestie lorem at massa
• Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
• Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
  • Phasellus iaculis neque
  • Purus sodales ultricies
  • Vestibulum laoreet porttitor sem
  • Ac tristique libero volutpat at
• Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel
• Aenean sit amet erat nunc
• Eget porttitor lorem

Unstyled

<ul class="unstyled">

• Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
• Consectetur adipiscing elit
• Integer molestie lorem at massa
• Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
• Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
  • Phasellus iaculis neque
  • Purus sodales ultricies
  • Vestibulum laoreet porttitor sem
  • Ac tristique libero volutpat at
• Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel
• Aenean sit amet erat nunc
• Eget porttitor lorem

Ordered

<ol>

1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
2. Consectetur adipiscing elit
3. Integer molestie lorem at massa
4. Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet
5. Nulla volutpat aliquam velit
6. Faucibus porta lacus fringilla vel
7. Aenean sit amet erat nunc
8. Eget porttitor lorem

Description

<dl>

Description lists

A description list is perfect for defining terms.

Euismod

Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper eget lacinia odio sem nec elit.

Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.

Malesuada porta

Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod.

Horizontal description

<dl class="dl-horizontal">

Description lists

A description list is perfect for defining terms.

Euismod

Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper eget lacinia odio sem nec elit.

Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.

Malesuada porta

Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod.

Felis euismod semper eget lacinia

Fusce dapibus, tellus ac cursus commodo, tortor mauris condimentum nibh, ut fermentum massa justo sit amet risus.

Heads up!
Horizontal description lists will truncate terms that are too long to fit in the left column fix text-overflow. In narrower viewports, they will change to the default stacked layout.

Inline

Wrap inline snippets of code with <code>.

For example, <code>section</code> should be wrapped as inline.

Basic block

Use <pre> for multiple lines of code. Be sure to escape any angle brackets in the code for proper rendering.

<p>Sample text here...</p>

<pre>
  &lt;p&gt;Sample text here...&lt;/p&gt;
</pre>

Note: Be sure to keep code within <pre> tags as close to the left as possible; it will render all tabs.

You may optionally add the .pre-scrollable class which will set a max-height of 350px and provide a y-axis scrollbar.

Google Prettify

Take the same <pre> element and add two optional classes for enhanced rendering.

<p>Sample text here...</p>

<pre class="prettyprint
     linenums">
  &lt;p&gt;Sample text here...&lt;/p&gt;
</pre>

Download google-code-prettify and view the readme for how to use.

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>…</th>
      <th>…</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>…</td>
      <td>…</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Tables are automatically styled with only a few borders to ensure readability and maintain structure. With 2.0, the .table class is required.

<table class="table">
  …
</table>

Get a little fancy with your tables by adding zebra-striping—just add the .table-striped class.

Note: Striped tables use the :nth-child CSS selector and is not available in IE7-IE8.

<table class="table table-striped">
  …
</table>

Add borders around the entire table and rounded corners for aesthetic purposes.

<table class="table table-bordered">
  …
</table>

Make your tables more compact by adding the .table-condensed class to cut table cell padding in half (from 8px to 4px).

<table class="table table-condensed">
  …
</table>

Feel free to combine any of the table classes to achieve different looks by utilizing any of the available classes.

<table class="table table-striped table-bordered table-condensed">
  ...
</table>

Flexible HTML and CSS

The best part about forms in Bootstrap is that all your inputs and controls look great no matter how you build them in your markup. No superfluous HTML is required, but we provide the patterns for those who require it.

More complicated layouts come with succinct and scalable classes for easy styling and event binding, so you’re covered at every step.

Four layouts included

Bootstrap comes with support for four types of form layouts:

• Vertical (default)
• Search
• Inline
• Horizontal

Different types of form layouts require some changes to markup, but the controls themselves remain and behave the same.

Control states and more

Bootstrap’s forms include styles for all the base form controls like input, textarea, and select you’d expect. But it also comes with a number of custom components like appended and prepended inputs and support for lists of checkboxes.

States like error, warning, and success are included for each type of form control. Also included are styles for disabled controls.

Basic form

Smart and lightweight defaults without extra markup.

<form class="well">
  <label>Label name</label>
  <input type="text" class="span3" placeholder="Type something…">
  <span class="help-block">Example block-level help text here.</span>
  <label class="checkbox">
    <input type="checkbox"> Check me out
  </label>
  <button type="submit" class="btn">Submit</button>
</form>

Search form

Add .form-search to the form and .search-query to the input.

<form class="well form-search">
  <input type="text" class="input-medium search-query">
  <button type="submit" class="btn">Search</button>
</form>

Inline form

Add .form-inline to finesse the vertical alignment and spacing of form controls.

<form class="well form-inline">
  <input type="text" class="input-small" placeholder="Email">
  <input type="password" class="input-small" placeholder="Password">
  <label class="checkbox">
    <input type="checkbox"> Remember me
  </label>
  <button type="submit" class="btn">Sign in</button>
</form>

Shown on the right are all the default form controls we support. Here’s the bulleted list:

• text inputs (text, password, email, etc)
• checkbox
• radio
• select
• multiple select
• file input
• textarea

Example markup

Given the above example form layout, here’s the markup associated with the first input and control group. The .control-group, .control-label, and .controls classes are all required for styling.

<form class="form-horizontal">
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Legend text</legend>
    <div class="control-group">
      <label class="control-label" for="input01">Text input</label>
      <div class="controls">
        <input type="text" class="input-xlarge" id="input01">
        <p class="help-block">Supporting help text</p>
      </div>
    </div>
  </fieldset>
</form>

Bootstrap features styles for browser-supported focused and disabled states. We remove the default Webkit outline and apply a box-shadow in its place for :focus.

Form validation

It also includes validation styles for errors, warnings, and success. To use, add the error class to the surrounding .control-group.

<fieldset
  class="control-group error">
  …
</fieldset>

Prepend & append inputs

Input groups—with appended or prepended text—provide an easy way to give more context for your inputs. Great examples include the @ sign for Twitter usernames or $ for finances.

Checkboxes and radios

Up to v1.4, Bootstrap required extra markup around checkboxes and radios to stack them. Now, it’s a simple matter of repeating the <label class="checkbox"> that wraps the <input type="checkbox">.

Inline checkboxes and radios are also supported. Just add .inline to any .checkbox or .radio and you’re done.

Inline forms and append/prepend

To use prepend or append inputs in an inline form, be sure to place the .add-on and input on the same line, without spaces.

Form help text

To add help text for your form inputs, include inline help text with <span class="help-inline"> or a help text block with <p class="help-block"> after the input element.

Buttons for actions

As a convention, buttons should only be used for actions while hyperlinks are to be used for objects. For instance, “Download” should be a button while “recent activity” should be a link.

Button styles can be applied to anything with the .btn class applied. However, typically you’ll want to apply these to only <a> and <button> elements.

Cross browser compatibility

IE9 doesn’t crop background gradients on rounded corners, so we remove it. Related, IE9 jankifies disabled button elements, rendering text gray with a nasty text-shadow that we cannot fix.

Multiple sizes

Fancy larger or smaller buttons? Add .btn-large, .btn-small, or .btn-mini for two additional sizes.

Primary action
Action

Primary action
Action

Primary action
Action

Disabled state

For disabled buttons, add the .disabled class to links and the disabled attribute for <button> elements.

Primary link
Link

Primary button
Button

Heads up!
We use .disabled as a utility class here, similar to the common .active class, so no prefix is required.

One class, multiple tags

Use the .btn class on an <a>, <button>, or <input> element.

<a class="btn" href="">Link</a>
<button class="btn" type="submit">
  Button
</button>
<input class="btn" type="button"
         value="Input">
<input class="btn" type="submit"
         value="Submit">

As a best practice, try to match the element for you context to ensure matching cross-browser rendering. If you have an input, use an <input type="submit"> for your button.