styleelement

The style element is an HTML element used to embed Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) directly within a web document. It provides an internal stylesheet that the browser applies using the standard CSS cascade, allowing authors to define styles without linking to an external file.

Typically, a style element appears in the head of an HTML document, but it can be used elsewhere in HTML5 in certain contexts. The content of the style element must be valid CSS rules. The default MIME type is text/css, and the type attribute is optional in HTML5. Common attributes include media, which restricts the stylesheet to specific media types (such as screen or print), and nonce, which helps protect against certain CSP-related risks.

Styles defined in style elements interact with other styles from external stylesheets and inline styles, and they participate in the cascade and specificity rules that determine the final computed styles of elements. Multiple style elements in a document are treated collectively, as if their rules were written in a single stylesheet.

Historically, a scoped attribute was proposed to limit a style element’s rules to a portion of the document, but this feature was never standardized and is not supported in modern browsers. Modern HTML practice often uses external stylesheets for maintainability, with the style element reserved for small, document-specific overrides or inline CSS currently in use.

Example:

<style>

body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; }

h1 { color: navy; }

</style>