HTML tags

In this lesson

1. Body (All pages) tag
2. Headings
3. Paragraphs
4. Links
5. Tag-based style guide

Body (All pages) tag

Setting typography styles on the Body (All pages) tag will cascade down to all typography in the entire project. It’s good practice to set the default font family, font size, and line height on this tag and override those styles on H1-H6 heading tags. 

‍

You can style the Body (All pages) tag in two ways:

1. Select the Body element and choose the Body (All pages) tag from the Selector field dropdown in the Style panel
2. Select any element and choose the Body (All pages) tag from the inheritance menu — all elements inherit styles from the Body (All pages) tag

‍

To access the Body (All pages) tag:

1. Select the Body element on any page
2. Click into the Selector field in the Style panel
3. Choose the Body (All pages) tag from the dropdown
   

‍

To select the tag for elements that have a class using the inheritance menu:   

1. Select an element with a class
2. Click the inheritance menu above the Style panel  
3. Select the tag (e.g. All paragraphs)
4. Add styles
   

‍

Changes you make in Body (All pages) are a starting point, which is an important distinction between tags and classes — tags let you set the default styling for entire batches of elements. 

If you make style changes with the Body (All pages) tag selected, new elements will inherit styles from the Body (All pages) tag. The Body (All pages) tag let’s you set default styles like font, font size, font color, line height, and a default background color. 

You can use classes to override any default styles in your project.

Tags are labeled pink, differentiating them from blue classes and green states. Here's a list of the element types with tags that can be edited:

• Body (all pages)
• H1 Heading
• H2 Heading
• H3 Heading
• H4 Heading
• H5 Heading
• H6 Heading
• Paragraph
• Link (text links, buttons, link blocks)
• Image
• Unordered list
• Ordered list
• List item
• Label
• Strong (inline bold text)
• Ems (inline italic text)
• Block quote
• Figure (in rich text)
• Figure Caption (in rich text)

All other elements require styling using classes and combo classes.

Headings

When you add a Heading, it inherits any styles set on the Body (All pages) tag. (Don’t forget — you can check inheritance by clicking the property label from the inheritance dropdown on the top-right of the Selector field in the Style panel.)

If you want to override a style without having to add that class to each heading — click into the Selector field and choose All H1 Headings. You’ll see the font is still being inherited from Body (All pages), which is expected. Now when you change the font, it will update all your H1s. 

Note: Tags help you set the defaults and classes let you override those defaults.

For example, if your default font is set to Tahoma on the Body (all pages) tag, when you add an H1 heading, it will be Tahoma. But if you set All H1 Headings tag to Playfair, your H1 headings will be Playfair. If you add a class and set the font to Raleway, your H1 will be Raleway.

Note: Elements look up the hierarchy for the nearest styling information. 

An element, like an H1, might have a class where it grabs styling information. If that information is missing, the H1 looks to the next level and takes its styling cues from the All H1 Headings tag, which takes its styling cues from the Body (All pages) tag.

Pro tip: Typography styles on headings are usually set apart from paragraph styles. It’s common practice to set the same font family on each heading tag (H1-H6).

Paragraphs

With any paragraph selected, you can click into the Selector field in the Style panel and access the All Paragraphs tag to make style adjustments.

For example, you can set a unitless line height that affects each line of text: 

1. Click into the Height field under Typography 
2. Adjust the value (e.g., to 1.6)
3. Set it to unitless by typing a hyphen or choosing it from the unit dropdown)
   

Unitless means the line height scales proportionally with the font size.

You can also use the All Paragraphs tag to add space between paragraphs. Line height makes sure text doesn’t bleed together from line to line, and bottom margin allows you to group paragraphs visually.

Links

Add a Link to your project by selecting it from the Elements panel. 

To add a link, you can also: 

1. Double click into existing text on the canvas
2. Highlight the text you’d like to link
3. Create a link

To make default style changes to your link:

1. Click into the Selector field
2. Select the All links tag
3. Change text decoration or font-color 

‍

Any new links you add will inherit any default styles you add.

Note: The All links tag affects other types of links besides text links. For example, if you make changes to the All links tag font color with the hover state selected, and then add a button element, the button element will have the same hover effect as any other link element. Override the hover state styles on your button class.

Tags are helpful for setting defaults, but they can make sweeping changes if you’re not tracking the elements using the tags — be sure to do a visual inspection after making tag changes.

Tag-based style guide

A style guide lets you set project defaults when early in the design process. Webflow created a tag-based style guide you can copy and paste into your project into every new project to kickstart your next website with a clean style guide.

Note: Be sure to add a password to the style guide if you don’t want it to show up on Google (or other search engines).

Create your own simple style guide template

Create a style guide as a separate page where your common elements are organized and styled so it’s easy to preview all the default styles. 

To create the template:

1. Create a project with a single page
2. Add a section onto the page
3. Add at least one of each element that has an HTML tag you can style
4. Do not add any classes to these elements
   

To use this template in a new project:

1. Create a new page in your new project
2. Name your page (e.g., “Style guide”)
3. Save the page as draft
4. Go to the template project
5. Select and copy the section
6. Paste in the “Style guide” page of the new project
7. Select each element and style the HTML tag of that element
   

Now you can save a lot of work and time and set up all the tags that you plan to use in your project.

Don’t forget to style the Body (All pages) tag — since you can't copy/paste a page's body, you can’t include it in your style guide. You can select the body element on the “Style guide” page, then select and style the Body (All Pages) tag. Learn more about the Body element.

Tags are critical when styling Rich text in Webflow — check out our Rich text lesson on Webflow University and learn how tags can help you create consistent designs