Default padding above and below text

[ShinyCDMan]

There seems to be 2 or 3 pixels automatically inserted above and below all the text on my page.

Is this something to do with the default line-height setting?

If so, what should I set line-height to be so that there is no padding around text by default?

[rbutler]

You probably need to zero out margins and padding on the body selector, since by default, most all elements have them applied:

body{
margin:0;
padding:0;
}

Then apply margins/padding to specific elements in the page such as:

h3, h4{
  margin:10px 0;
  padding:10px;
}

To get the most accurate results, we would need to see a page.

[ShinyCDMan]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I've already set margin and padding to 0 in the body tag.

This pretty simple code demonstrates what I mean:

body {
margin:0;
padding:0;
background-color:#ffffff;
color:#000000;
font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

#guestBookHeader {
background:url('../img/sectionHeaderTrim.gif') no-repeat top left #333333;
margin:0;
padding:0;
text-align:right;
color:#FFFFFF;
font-weight:bold;
}

<div id="guestBookHeader">
	Guest Book
</div>

[rbutler]

There's no space above or below the text in your example, I thought that was what you wanted? If you place a paragraph tag or heading inside the guestBookHeader, then simply add another selector:

 #guestBookHeader p{
 padding:0;
 margin:0;
 }

If you do a heading tag, simply adjust the h2,h3,h4 for the p above. Or am I missing something?

[ShinyCDMan]

There's no space above or below the text in your example, I thought that was what you wanted? If you place a paragraph tag or heading inside the guestBookHeader, then simply add another selector:

 #guestBookHeader p{
 padding:0;
 margin:0;
 }

If you do a heading tag, simply adjust the h2,h3,h4 for the p above. Or am I missing something?

There is some space - if you set the font-size on the body to 80% or 90%, it's clearer. It's only a couple of pixels top and bottom but makes it very difficult to create pixel perfect pages.

[rbutler]

Trying to create pixel perfect web pages is kind of like trying to fix a car which has multiple problems with one wrench. No visitor is going to complain if you're off a hair or two pixel wise, believe me, I used to be this picky and no ever notices.

If its something extremely crucial you'll simply have to play with settings. If not, I'd leave it be.