Use !important in CSS

In web development, a key part of achieving the desired visual aesthetics involves manipulating CSS properties. In some scenarios, however, specific CSS rules can conflict with one another, leading to unpredictable and undesired results. This is when the use of the !important rule in CSS comes to play.

Code snippet

The following example demonstrates the use of !important in CSS.

p {
  color: blue;
}

p {
  color: red !important;
}

Code Explanation

In this example, we have two conflicting rules for the paragraph text color: one setting it to blue and another setting it to red.

The first rule is a standard CSS rule:

p {
  color: blue;
}

This code specifies that all paragraph text should be blue. However, we have an equivalent rule that contradicts it:

p {
  color: red !important;
}

Here, we use the !important rule to denote that all paragraph text should be red instead of blue. The !important rule essentially gives this CSS rule higher priority over other potentially conflicting rules. As a result, despite the earlier rule specifying a blue color, this !important rule overrides it, making all paragraph text red.

It is important to note that the use of the !important rule in CSS should be sparing and intentional. Over-reliance on this rule may lead to further confusion and difficulties in debugging and maintaining your CSS code. As a general practice, it’s better to use more specific CSS selectors to increase a rule’s specificity and thereby its precedence, resorting to !important only when necessary.