setting styles in <input> tag - html

Question

why can't one set a style like the font size in an input tag, e.g.
<input style="font-size:20px" type="radio" name="a" value="a">some text</input>
Shouldn't the font attributes apply?
Secondly, what is the best way to do this then?
Thanks

Answer 1

I think that it's because the CSS you're setting applies to the 'inner' tag of that input.
The thing you want styled is its Value, so you need to wrap your input inside a placeholder and style that.
For example:
<span style="font-size:40px">
<input type="radio" name="a" value="a">some text
<input type="radio" name="a" value="b">some text
</span>
Works as expected.

Answer 2

There's not a lot you can do to style a radio button, however:
<input type="radio" name="radiogroup" id="radio-1">
<label for="radio-1">Radio button 1</label>
you can style the label...

Answer 3

The best way to go about this is providing the style deceleration within an external stylesheet, or perhaps at the top of the document. Inline styles are typically what you want to avoid if at all possible, as it becomes confusing for later changes and can cause really dirty specificity issues.
An example of a fix:
HTMl (example)
<div id="form">
<input type="text" name="name" value="a" />
</div>
CSS (example)
#form input {
font-size: 20px;
}
Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Try the following:
<input type="radio" name="a" value="a"><span style="font-size: 50px;">some text</span></input>
If you wrap the text with a span\p tag you will be able to style the inner text of that tag.

Answer 5

I know this question already has an accepted answer, but I figure it's worth mentioning this:
It may be better to either associate a <label> tag with each radio input (using the for attribute of the label) or wrapping each radio input with a label tag. This lets your user click on the text to select the radio input instead of having to aim for a rather small circle.
So your markup looks like so:
<input type="radio" id="radio1" name="radios" value="something 1" />
<label for="radio1">Something 1</label>
<input type="radio" id="radio2" name="radios" value="something 2" />
<label for="radio2">Something 2</label>
<input type="radio" id="radio3" name="radios" value="something 3" />
<label for="radio3">Something 3</label>
Radio inputs are grouped into mutually exclusive selections by their name, which the group will share. The value specified in the for attribute of the label will match the id attribute of the radio input you want selected. So in the sample above, if you click on the text "Something 1", the radio input that is id'd as radio1 gets selected.
You can then style the text of the label to your heart's content.
This is in regards to the second part of your question,
"Secondly, what is the best way to do this then?"

Answer 6

#input {
background-color: black;
color: green;
text-align: center;
}
<input id="input" value="Value" />