Preventing double borders in CSS Grid - html

Question

Given the current CSS grid example, how can I collapse the borders in order to avoid the double borders ?
This is such a simple thing to achieve using an Html table. How do I do it using display: grid ?
.wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border: 1px solid black;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>

Answer 1

Instead of using an actual border around grid items, use the background color on the container (for "border" color) and the grid-gap property (for "border" width).
.wrapper {
display: inline-grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
border: 1px solid black;
grid-gap: 1px;
background-color: black;
}
.wrapper > div {
background-color: white;
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>

Answer 2

You may do like this :
.wrapper {
display: inline-grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
border-left: 1px solid black;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-right: 1px solid black;
}
body {
background:pink;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>
Another idea is to rely on gradient to fill gaps like below:
.wrapper {
display: inline-grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
grid-gap:1px;
background:
linear-gradient(#000,#000) center/100% 1px no-repeat,
repeating-linear-gradient(to right,transparent 0 50px,#000 0 51px);
border:1px solid;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
}
body {
background:pink;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>
You can also adjust the initial solution to make it more flexible and it will work with any number of items inside a row.
Run the below code on full page and resize the window:
.wrapper {
display: grid;
max-width:800px;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill,minmax(100px,1fr));
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-left: 1px solid black;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
border-right: 1px solid black;
}
body {
background:pink;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
<div>9</div>
<div>10</div>
<div>11</div>
</div>

Answer 3

I found a solution by using the outline property.
.grid {
width: 100%;
height: 700px;
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(4, 25fr);
grid-template-rows: repeat(4, 25fr);
margin-bottom: 30px;
grid-gap: 1px;
}
.grid-item {
background-color: silver;
outline: 1px solid gray; /* The outline creates the border */
text-align: center;
position: relative;
z-index: 1; /* original z-index */
}
/* If you want to change the color on the hover state */
.grid-item:hover {
outline: 1px solid red;
z-index: 2; /* You must apply a z-index bigger than the original z-index or else some parts of the outline will be behind other grid elements */
}
<div class="grid">
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
<div class="grid-item"></div>
</div>

Answer 4

.wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border: 1px solid black;
margin:0 -1px -1px 0;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>
margin:0 -1px -1px 0;
This should do the trick.

Answer 5

There is an easy way to do this:
.grid {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(4, 1fr);
grid-gap: 1px;
}
.grid__item {
border: 1px solid gray;
box-sizing: content-box;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
<div class="grid">
<div class="grid__item">1</div>
<div class="grid__item">2</div>
<div class="grid__item">3</div>
<div class="grid__item">4</div>
<div class="grid__item">5</div>
<div class="grid__item">6</div>
<div class="grid__item">7</div>
<div class="grid__item">8</div>
<div class="grid__item">9</div>
<div class="grid__item">10</div>
<div class="grid__item">11</div>
<div class="grid__item">12</div>
</div>
P.s. The main trick here is in box-sizing: content-box. You don't need it if you do not globally override it with another value. But many people uses border-box, in that case, this override solves the problem with the gap.

Answer 6

Something I've used with success is simply adding a box shadow to the grid items, along with a column and row gap. This then allows the columns size to always be exactly as determined in grid-template-columns.
Then simply changing the column and row gap and box shadow size allows for a thicker border.
.wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
grid-column-gap: 1px;
grid-row-gap: 1px;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
box-shadow: 0 0 0 1px;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
<div>8</div>
</div>

Answer 7

For anyone who will struggle with an odd number of elements and a specific amount of frames you can use the following approach
<style>
.wrapper {
width: 100%;
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(18rem, 1fr));
border: 1px solid;
grid-gap: 1px;
}
.element {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
background-color: azure;
min-height: 10rem;
border: 1px solid;
margin: -1px;
}
</style>
<body>
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="element"></div>
<div class="element"></div>
<div class="element"></div>
<div class="element"></div>
<div class="element"></div>
<div class="element"></div>
</div>
</body>
https://codepen.io/sergeytkhojevskiy/pen/XWZOJOL

Answer 8

The win-win code would be to set
grid items: border-bottom & border-right
grid wrapper: border-top & border-left
So it would correct even if top columns not equal to bottom columns
.wrapper {
display: inline-grid;
grid-template-columns: 50px 50px 50px 50px;
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-left: 1px solid black;
}
.wrapper > div {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
border-right: 1px solid black;
}
<div class="wrapper">
<div>1</div>
<div>2</div>
<div>3</div>
<div>4</div>
<div>5</div>
<div>6</div>
<div>7</div>
</div>

Answer 9

If you will fix the number of item per row this solution will fit you,
this example for 3 each row, but you can edit
.grid-container {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr;
grid-template-rows: 1fr;
gap: 0;
grid-template-areas: '. . .';
}
.grid-item {
order: 0;
flex: 0 1 auto;
text-align: center;
padding: 1rem;
font-size: 12px;
background-color: #e8e8e8;
border-color: #000;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 0;
border-right-width: 1px;
border-bottom-width: 1px;
}
/*first 3 items*/
.grid-item:nth-child(-n + 3) {
border-top-width: 1px;
}
/*last item on each row*/
.grid-item:nth-child(3n + 0) {
border-right-width: 1px;
background-color: cadetblue;
}
/*first item on each row*/
.grid-item:first-child,
.grid-item:nth-child(3n + 1) {
border-left-width: 1px;
background-color: red;
}
/*middel item on each row (not used)*/
.grid-item:nth-child(3n - 1) {
// border-left-width: 1px;
background-color: yellow;
}
/*last item (not used)*/
.grid-item:last-child {
// border-left-width: 0;
background-color: green
}
<div class="grid-container">
<div class="grid-item"> 1 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 2 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 3 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 1 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 2 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 3 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 1 </div>
<div class="grid-item"> 2 </div>
</div>