Reset Stylesheet: Bad Or Good

Reset Stylesheet; a long discussed and argued topic among designers in the industry and even among the freelancers. While some witness its great importance, other mourns about its failures and shortcomings. So where does it leave a novice or a newbie in the industry.


There is an attempt to understand and put the case of Reset Stylesheet in front of you all so as to come up with a decision over the much debated topic.

What are Reset Stylesheets?
Reset Stylesheet is a CSS file that is used in HTML documents. This file contains a specific CSS rule which defuses the default interpretation of the HTML elements and arrangement by the browser. It brings down the margins and padding to the baseline value of 0 and removes all the tags from HTML. This is done in order to avoid cross-browser differences that creep in due to their built in default settings.

Using Reset Stylesheets to Eliminate Browser Inconsistencies

This is not very hard to do you just need to link it to the header. And when you are writing you CSS you just have to see how the elements should look. The format of the text can be defined, you can set up the padding level, change font face, alter the spacing. When you set the browser to 0, you gets a clean slate to work on and can make sure things are as you want them to be.

This way browsers would render the page design as you intend it to be and not as per the browser defaults. The reset stylesheets eliminates the specifications of the browser.

Advantages of Reset Stylesheets

(a)Reset Stylesheets helps web designers to create a consistent design that look same on all browsers. This is because it creates a baseline starting point resets the browser formatting to 0. Because of this, you have total control over the CSS and can define what you want and how you want the same. Thus you can be sure that your designs will look the same irrespective of the browser, operating system or environment.

(b)Reset stylesheets also saves a lot of time. Though the learning process may be daunting and can take some time. However, once you know how to use reset stylesheets well and have considerable experience of the same, then you can simply induce your reset and modifications into the design and start designing.

Disadvantages of Reset Stylesheets

It needs to be reset to 0 before it can be modified into any other value. Because of this you will have to add things that you may find necessary all over again. Moreover, special attention needs to be devoted to areas where you want certain elements to appear. What was the browsers’ realm of work would have to be handled by you.

This is surely a time consuming process but all hardwork pays off considering the plethora of benefits it offers, it would not be too much of an investment.

Should You or Shouldn’t You?
Now it depends on you to decide upon the use of Reset Stylesheet. In a way it is an efficient web design tool that empowers you to customize your website designs and change it to perfection.

By: Manish Rawat

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