Override a border without moving it - html

Question

I would like add a border-bottom that displays when I hover over it with the mouse. I want it to override the border underneath so it looks like it changes colour. An example of this can be found here http://www.formaplex.com/services (in the nav bar)
Here is a jsfiddle https://jsfiddle.net/ey006ftg/
Also, a small question: does anyone know why there is a small gap in-between the the links (can be seen when hovering from link to link) and how to get rid of it.
Thanks

Answer 1

Just add this to your css:
nav a {
border-bottom: solid transparent 3px;
}
Here's a jsfiddle with the above code: https://jsfiddle.net/AndrewL32/ey006ftg/1/

Answer 2

You can use a negative margin to overlay the border below, as shown:
nav {
border-top: 1px solid grey;
border-bottom: 3px solid black;
width: 100%;
font-size:0;
}
nav ul {
width: 1056px;
margin: 0 auto;
text-align: center;
width: 1056px;
}
nav ul li {
display: inline-block;
width: 17%;
}
nav ul li a {
display: block;
padding: 21px 0;
font-size: 18px;
text-align: center;
letter-spacing: 1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
nav a:hover {
color: orange;
transition: 0.2s;
border-bottom: solid orange 3px;
margin-bottom: -10px;
}
a {
color: black;
text-decoration: none;
outline: 0;
}
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>Products</li>
<li>About</li>
<li>Careers</li>
<li>Contact</li>
</ul>
</nav>
As for fighting the inline gap, seeing as you defined a font-size later for the a tag, I would just add a font-size:0, which I added to nav in the above Snippet.

Answer 3

fiddle demo
Simply set your default border to transparent - change color on hover
nav ul li a {
display: block;
padding: 21px 0;
font-size: 18px;
text-align: center;
letter-spacing: 1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
border-bottom: solid transparent 3px; /* add this! */
transition:0.3s; /* or even this :) */
}

Answer 4

Try this fiddle
To set border-bottom the way you want, you have to add border to anchor tag like this:
nav ul li a {
display: block;
padding: 21px 0;
font-size: 18px;
text-align: center;
letter-spacing: 1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
border-bottom: 3px solid black;
}
and to make sure the space between menu items is gone use a little fix adding negative margin to your li tags inside menu like this:
nav ul li {
display: inline-block;
width: 17%;
margin-right: -4px;
}