# Some CSS help. IE (8) strange behaviour.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 23, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285 "2009-09-23T20:19:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/1 "2009-09-23T20:19:44Z")
I have some CSS designed to cause a link’s background to go grey when it’s hovered over…
small a:hover, a:hover {background-color: #CCC;}
In Firefox it works fine.
In IE it works fine for text links. But for Image links it does something strange. It causes a grey box to appear behind, at the bottom, and slightly to the left of the image. Look at [http://notails.com](http://notails.com) in IE 8 to see what I mean. (Compare with same in Firefox, if you have it)
So my question is, how do I stop image links from inheriting the behaviour of text links?
(I want to ‘undo’ the hover behaviour for image links)
---
### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/2 "2009-09-23T22:06:11Z")
Assign specific CSS to links vs images.
Also, be aware of [CSS LoVe/HAte" Linking](http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/csstips/lovehate.html).
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/3 "2009-09-23T22:13:15Z")
> [@Duckster](#):
>
> Assign specific CSS to links vs images.
>
> Also, be aware of [CSS LoVe/HAte" Linking](http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/csstips/lovehate.html).
If I assign CSS to a link, it applies the same CSS to a linked image. I don’t know how to NOT do that.
How do I assign specific CSS to an image that would override the link CSS and stop the strange behaviour?
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/4 "2009-09-23T22:59:05Z")
I got the answer. Adding the following to ‘a img’ CSS fixed it…
“vertical-align: bottom;”
---
### Author:  [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/5 "2009-09-23T23:02:55Z")
> [@Lobsang](#):
>
> If I assign CSS to a link, it applies the same CSS to a linked image. I don’t know how to NOT do that.
>
> How do I assign specific CSS to an image that would override the link CSS and stop the strange behaviour?
I think **Duckster** means to assign CSS to images/text separately, via the [“class” attribute](http://www.w3schools.com/Css/css_syntax.asp). You could designate a class value of “textLink” for any text hyperlinks to which you want to apply the CSS. Then, you would modify the CSS style as “a.textLink:hover”.
For example:
CSS
```auto
a.textLink:hover {background-color: #CCC;}
```
HTML
```auto
Some text
```
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/6 "2009-09-23T23:11:38Z")
> [@LilShieste](#):
>
> I think **Duckster** means to assign CSS to images/text separately, via the [“class” attribute](http://www.w3schools.com/Css/css_syntax.asp). You could designate a class value of “textLink” for any text hyperlinks to which you want to apply the CSS. Then, you would modify the CSS style as “a.textLink:hover”.
>
> For example:
>
> CSS
>
> ```auto
>
> a.textLink:hover {background-color: #CCC;}
>
> ```
>
> HTML
>
> ```auto
>
> Some text
>
>
> ```
Thanks for that. But I’d rather not have to create a class for it, because I want the hover behaviour for ALL the links on my website, so I don’t want to have to put class=“textlink” in every single one of them.
---
### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-css-help-ie-8-strange-behaviour/511285/7 "2009-09-24T03:22:36Z")
> [@Lobsang](#):
>
> Thanks for that. But I’d rather not have to create a class for it, because I want the hover behaviour for ALL the links on my website, so I don’t want to have to put class=“textlink” in every single one of them.
Then reverse the logic. Apply a style that applies to all links that should have the same hover. Then create a special class for those that require something else.