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CSS

Corbin Balzan
Corbin Balzan
11,751 Points
Posted by Corbin Balzan
Corbin Balzan
11,751 Points

1em does not equal 100%?

I am trying to use an adjustable unit for the padding of list items. I used percentage and em interchangeably (setting max-width of the body to 90%) but when I went to change them 1em did not equal 100% and vice versa. Why would this be happening?

2 Answers

rydavim
rydavim
18,814 Points
rydavim
rydavim
18,814 Points

Without seeing your code, it's difficult to say for sure. You definitely don't want to use em and percentages interchangeably.

One em is equal to the currently specified point size. So by default, 1em is equal to 16px. It doesn't translate well to a percentage.

When defining a percentage width, you are comparing it to the width of the parent element. So if you say the max width of the body is 90% that will be 90% of the window (usually).

mtch
mtch
8,521 Points
mtch
mtch
8,521 Points

1 em is equal to your currently chosen font size - mostly it is 16px.