Using CSS Border Images

Imagine that you want your website or web application to have a unique and beautiful design. One interesting way to achieve this is by using images for border elements in CSS. Instead of using solid colors or simple border styles, you can decorate the borders with images, creating a design that is possibly less seen.

Now, if you want to focus on special templates or give importance to details, this feature can help you. When using border images, you should consider how these images will surround a particular element. In fact, you can have multiple characteristics in CSS to accomplish this task: border-image-source, border-image-slice, border-image-width, border-image-outset, and border-image-repeat.

To get started, you need to have an image that defines the borders of the elements based on it. This image can be anything from a simple shape to a complex design. The key point is that the image should have parts that can be stretched or repeated along the borders.

To use this capability in CSS, ensure to have appropriate attributes for defining dimensions and methods of repeating the image. In this way, you can achieve delightful results and create a border image that you want to implement.

How to Use CSS Border Images

When you have selected a suitable border image, you can use the following example to see how to implement border images in CSS:

.elem {
  border: 10px solid transparent;
  border-image-source: url('border-image.png');
  border-image-slice: 20;
  border-image-width: 10px;
  border-image-outset: 0;
  border-image-repeat: stretch;
}

A line-by-line explanation of this code: