Font Awesome icons have text-decoration issues inside links - html

Question

I have a "ugly" issue with font-awesome, when I place a icon-link (icon inside a link) in front of a text. By hovering the icon, the icon itself will not get underlined but somehow the space between the text and the icon.
Somehow the text-decoration css rule from the link (underline while hover) collides with the one coming from the icon in this strangely appearing space.
How can I get rid of this underline in the space and have no decoration at all in the end?
(when possible without adding a class to the link element nor using JS)
Here is a code snippet that may help you.
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<h1>
<a href="#">
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
</a>
Text of Title
</h1>
Fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/kg6zdxu5/

Answer 1

Apparently your <a> tag and your <i> tag will not render a space if you write them in a single line. Avoiding line break between these two elements fixes your issue.
Code Snippet:
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<h1>
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
Text of Title
</h1>
EDIT:
Usually it is better if you do not change the default display value of an element, but here you can use display: inline-block; in your <a> tag to remove that space.
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
h1 > a {
display: inline-block;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<h1>
<a href="#">
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
</a>
Text of Title
</h1>
Not necessarily question-related but I stopped using icon fonts a while back and adopted SVG icons, which, in my opinion, are way better.
Here's a good article on making the switch, and here's another on how to use them.
DEMO:
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
h1 > a {
display: inline-block;
color: purple;
}
.icon {
display: inline-block;
width: 1em;
height: 1em;
stroke-width: 0;
stroke: currentColor;
fill: currentColor;
}
.icon-wrench {
width: 0.939453125em;
}
<h1>
<a href="#">
<svg class="icon icon-wrench">
<use xlink:href="#icon-wrench"></use>
</svg>
</a>
Text of Title
</h1>
<svg style="display:none;">
<symbol id="icon-wrench" viewBox="0 0 30 32">
<title>wrench</title>
<path class="path1" d="M6.857 26.286q0-0.464-0.339-0.804t-0.804-0.339-0.804 0.339-0.339 0.804 0.339 0.804 0.804 0.339 0.804-0.339 0.339-0.804zM18.357 18.786l-12.179 12.179q-0.661 0.661-1.607 0.661-0.929 0-1.625-0.661l-1.893-1.929q-0.679-0.643-0.679-1.607 0-0.946 0.679-1.625l12.161-12.161q0.696 1.75 2.045 3.098t3.098 2.045zM29.679 11.018q0 0.696-0.411 1.893-0.839 2.393-2.938 3.884t-4.616 1.491q-3.304 0-5.652-2.348t-2.348-5.652 2.348-5.652 5.652-2.348q1.036 0 2.17 0.295t1.92 0.83q0.286 0.196 0.286 0.5t-0.286 0.5l-5.232 3.018v4l3.446 1.911q0.089-0.054 1.411-0.866t2.42-1.446 1.259-0.634q0.268 0 0.42 0.179t0.152 0.446z"></path>
</symbol>
</svg>

Answer 2

If I understood you correctly, you want to remove the unnecessary underline you have and add this underline under the icon.
Just remove the a:hover and replace it with i:hover, and that should do the trick.
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
.fa-wrench:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<h1>
<a href="#">
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
</a>
Text of Title
</h1>

Answer 3

Simply remove a:hover and add .fa-wrench:hover.
h1 {
font-size:2.5em;
}
a {
text-decoration: none;
}
.fa-wrench:hover{
text-decoration: underline;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<h1>
<a href="#">
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
</a>
Test Title
</h1>

Answer 4

a {
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<h1>
<a href="#">
<i class="fa fa-wrench"></i>
</a>
Text of Title
</h1>

Answer 5

Usually this problem pops up when you have multiple font awesome icons, for example, below we have 2 icons:
<span>
<a href="https://github.com/" class="me-4 text-reset text-decoration-none">
<i class="fab fa-github px-1"></i>
</a>
</span>
<span>
<a href="https://github.com/" class="me-4 text-reset text-decoration-none">
<i class="fab fa-github px-1"></i>
</a>
</span>
The key class is text-decoration-none, which you define in your style sheet as follow:
.text-decoration-none:hover{
text-decoration: none;
}
In this way, while hovering, your font awesome icon won't show an underline. It overwrites your a:hover. Keep in mind that you need <span></span> tags to achieve this...
so you need a new :hover class plus <span> tags.