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CSS

Posted by MARIA Quadri
MARIA Quadri
2,572 Points

What is the difference between padding and margin in CSS

Don't they both just add space? I can't figure out the difference. ( I'm also very new to this so maybe i haven't written enough code to visually see the difference)

Kelly Castle
Kelly Castle
10,547 Points

Glad to help! :)

2 Answers

Kelly Castle
Kelly Castle
10,547 Points

This took me a while to figure out too- I'm a visual learner so I had to play around with it to understand. BUT- margin is the outer space of an element, so think of it as pushing things away from the element, while padding is the inner space of the element.

Think of it as a picture frame- increasing margin would expand space away from the outside of the frame, while increasing padding would expand the inner space of the frame, making it a larger frame.

That's how I think of it- hopefully that helps!

MARIA Quadri
MARIA Quadri
2,572 Points

This picture frame example makes so much sense - thank you! :)

Christof Baumgartner
Christof Baumgartner
20,864 Points
Christof Baumgartner
Christof Baumgartner
20,864 Points

There is a great stackoverflow discussion about this with examples: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2189452/when-to-use-margin-vs-padding-in-css

MARIA Quadri
MARIA Quadri
2,572 Points

I'll def check out this discussion thank you!