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How does one target IE7 and IE8 with valid CSS?

I want to target IE7 and IE8 with W3C-compliant CSS. Sometimes fixing CSS for one version does not fix for the other. How can I achieve this?

Solution

  • Explicitly Target IE versions without hacks using HTML and CSS

    Use this approach if you don't want hacks in your CSS. Add a browser-unique class to the <html> element so you can select based on browser later.

    Example

    <!doctype html>
<!--[if IE]><![endif]-->
<!--[if lt IE 7 ]> <html lang="en" class="ie6">    <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7 ]>    <html lang="en" class="ie7">    <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]>    <html lang="en" class="ie8">    <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 9 ]>    <html lang="en" class="ie9">    <![endif]-->
<!--[if (gt IE 9)|!(IE)]><!--><html lang="en"><!--<![endif]-->
    <head></head>
    <body></body>
</html>

    Then in your CSS you can very strictly access your target browser.

    Example

    .ie6 body { 
    border:1px solid red;
}
.ie7 body { 
    border:1px solid blue;
}

    For more information check out http://html5boilerplate.com/

    Target IE versions with CSS "Hacks"

    More to your point, here are the hacks that let you target IE versions.

    Use "\9" to target IE8 and below.
    Use "*" to target IE7 and below.
    Use "_" to target IE6.

    Example:

    body { 
border:1px solid red; /* standard */
border:1px solid blue\9; /* IE8 and below */
*border:1px solid orange; /* IE7 and below */
_border:1px solid blue; /* IE6 */
}

    Update: Target IE10

    IE10 does not recognize the conditional statements so you can use this to apply an "ie10" class to the <html> element

    <!doctype html>
    <html lang="en">
    <!--[if !IE]><!--><script>if (/*@cc_on!@*/false) {document.documentElement.className+=' ie10';}</script><!--<![endif]-->
        <head></head>
        <body></body>
</html>