Two color borders

Client wants two color borders for an embossed look. Can I do this on one element? I was hoping to avoid stacking two DOM elements with individual borders.

Yep: Use the outline property; it acts as a second border outside of your border. Beware, tho', it can interact in a wonky fashion with margins, paddings and drop-shadows. In some browsers you might have to use a browser-specific prefix as well; in order to make sure it picks up on it: -webkit-outline and the like (although WebKit in particular doesn't require this).

This can also be useful in the case where you want to jettison the outline for certain browsers (such as is the case if you want to combine the outline with a drop shadow; in WebKit the outline is inside of the shadow; in FireFox it is outside, so -moz-outline: 0 is useful to ensure that you don't get a gnarly line around your beautiful CSS drop shadow).

.someclass {
  border: 1px solid blue;
  outline: 1px solid darkblue;
}

Edit: Some people have remarked that outline doesn't jive well with IE < 8. While this is true; supporting IE < 8 really isn't something you should be doing.

This is very possible. It just takes a little CSS trickery!

div.border {
  border: 1px solid #000;
  position: relative;
}

div.border:before {
  position: absolute;
  display: block;
  content: '';
  border: 1px solid red;
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
  -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
}

<div class="border">Hi I have two border colors<br />I am also Fluid</div>

Is that what you are looking for?

Another way is to use box-shadow:

#mybox {
box-shadow:
  0 0 0 1px #CCC,
  0 0 0 2px #888,
  0 0 0 3px #444,
  0 0 0 4px #000;
-moz-box-shadow:
  0 0 0 1px #CCC,
  0 0 0 2px #888,
  0 0 0 3px #444,
  0 0 0 4px #000;
-webkit-shadow:
  0 0 0 1px #CCC,
  0 0 0 2px #888,
  0 0 0 3px #444,
  0 0 0 4px #000;
}

<div id="mybox">ABC</div>

See example here.

Have you tried the different border styles available within the CSS spec? There's already two border styles that might accommodate your need:

border-style: ridge;

Or

border-style: groove;

Outline is good, but only when you want the border all around.

Lets say if you want to make it only on bottom or top you can use

<style>

  #border-top {
  border-top: 1px solid  #ccc;
  box-shadow: inset 0 1px 0 #fff;
}
</style>

<p id="border-top">This is my content</p>

And for bottom:

<style>
    
      #border-bottom {
      border-top: 1px solid  #ccc;
      box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
    }
</style>

    <p id="border-bottom">This is my content</p>

Hope that this helps.

Instead of using unsupported and problematic outline just use

• background-color + padding for the inner border
• normal border for the outer one.

Example:

HTML:

<img src="http://cdn3.thumbs.common.smcloud.net/common/8/6/s/863444wpPN.jpg/r-0,500-n-863444wpPN.jpg" alt="malkovich" />

CSS:

img {
    padding: 1px;
    background: yellow;
    border:1px solid black;
}

TEST(JSFiddle):

img {
  padding: 1px;
  background: yellow;
  border: 1px solid black;
}

<img src="http://cdn3.thumbs.common.smcloud.net/common/8/6/s/863444wpPN.jpg/r-0,500-n-863444wpPN.jpg" alt="malkovich" />

If by "embossing" you mean two borders around each other with two different colours, there is the outline property (outline-left, outline-right....) but it is poorly supported in the IE family (namely, IE6 and 7 don't support it at all). If you need two borders, a second wrapper element would indeed be best.

If you mean using two colours in the same border. Use e.g.

border-right: 1px white solid;
border-left: 1px black solid;
border-top: 1px black solid;
border-bottom: 1px white solid;

there are special border-styles for this as well (ridge, outset and inset) but they tend to vary across browsers in my experience.

Adding the following CSS properties to a border will achieve a double border of two distinct colors and identical widths for those who are interested.

Example:

Selector {
    border: 10px red;
    border-block-start-style: ridge;
    border-inline-start-style: ridge;
    border-inline-end-style: groove;
    border-block-end-style: groove;
}

Not possible, but you should check to see if border-style values like inset, outset or some other, accomplished the effect you want.. (i doubt it though..)

CSS3 has the border-image properties, but i do not know about support from browsers yet (more info at http://www.css3.info/preview/border-image/)..

Simply write

style="border:medium double;"

for the html tag

You could use

<html>
<head>
<title>Two Colors</title>
<style type="text/css">

.two-colors {
background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(245, 245, 245); border-color: rgba(111,111,111,0.2) transparent;
 padding: 4px; outline: 1px solid green;
}
  
</style>

<style type="text/css">
      body {
        padding-top: 20px;
        padding-bottom: 40px;
        background-color:yellow;		
      }
    </style>
	
</head>
<body>
<a target="_blank" href="people.htm">
  <img class="two-colors" src="people.jpg" alt="Klematis" width="213" height="120" />
  </a>
  
</body>
</html>

This produces a nice effect.

<div style="border: 1px solid gray; padding: 1px">
<div style="border: 1px solid gray">
   internal stuff
</div>
</div>