How to override inherited styles in CSS?
Jul 16, 2025 am 01:47 AMTo override inherited CSS styles, the core approach is to increase the priority of custom styles. 1. You can add!important after the attribute (use with caution, only if necessary). 2. Improve selector specificity, such as using ID or adding class names. 3. Adjust the load order of the style sheet and place the custom styles at the end to introduce. 4. Use inline styles (non-regular use is not recommended), which have extremely high priority but are difficult to maintain. Using these techniques rationally can effectively resolve style conflict problems.
Sometimes when you write web page styles, you will find that you clearly wrote CSS, but the style just doesn't take effect. This is most likely because some styles are inherited from the parent element or are overwritten by other more specific rules. So how can we truly "cover" these inherited styles?

In fact, the core is one point: increase the priority of the style you write . The following methods can help you solve this problem.
1. Use !important
(use with caution)
The most direct way is to add !important
to your CSS attribute, so that the browser will use this value first and ignore other conflicting rules.

.child { color: red !important; }
??Note : Although it is easy to use, it is abused
!important
will make the style more and more difficult to maintain. It is recommended to use only if other codes are really not modified.
2. Improve the specificity of the selector
CSS determines which rule takes effect based on the specificity of the selector. for example:

- Element selectors (such as
div
) have a lower weight - Class selectors (such as
.my-class
) are higher - The ID selector (such as
#my-id
) has the highest weight
You can increase the priority by adding class names or using IDs:
.parent .child { color: blue; }
If this is still overwritten, you can change it to:
#main .child { color: green; }
Or add one more class:
.child.override-style { color: green; }
Then write it on HTML:
<div class="child override-style"></div>
3. Change the loading order of style sheets
If you have two CSS files, the browser will load the one in the future (provided that the selector priority is the same). So you can put custom styles at the end to introduce:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="reset.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css"> <!-- The style in this file will overwrite the previous one -->
This trick is especially useful when debugging or using third-party component libraries.
4. Use inline styles (non-recommended)
You can also write the style attribute directly in HTML:
<div style="color: purple;">Text</div>
This writing method has high priority and can almost cover external styles. But the disadvantages are also obvious: it is difficult to maintain, is not conducive to reuse, and is generally only used in JS dynamic control styles.
Overall, the key to overwriting inheritance styles is to understand the priority mechanism of CSS. You can first try to adjust the structure and loading order of the selector. If it really doesn't work, then consider the !important
or inline style. Basically, that's not complicated, but it's easy to have problems with hierarchical relationships in actual projects, so it's important to maintain a clear structure.
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