Add CSS to <head> with JavaScript?

If you don't want to rely on a javascript library, you can use document.write() to spit out the required css, wrapped in style tags, straight into the document head:

<head>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    document.write("<style>body { background-color:#000 }</style>");
  </script>
  # other stuff..
</head>

This way you avoid firing an extra HTTP request.

There are other solutions that have been suggested / added / removed, but I don't see any point in overcomplicating something that already works fine cross-browser. Good luck!

http://jsbin.com/oqede3/edit


As you are trying to add a string of CSS to <head> with JavaScript? injecting a string of CSS into a page it is easier to do this with the <link> element than the <style> element.

The following adds p { color: green; } rule to the page.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="data:text/css;charset=UTF-8,p%20%7B%20color%3A%20green%3B%20%7D" />

You can create this in JavaScript simply by URL encoding your string of CSS and adding it the HREF attribute. Much simpler than all the quirks of <style> elements or directly accessing stylesheets.

var linkElement = this.document.createElement('link');
linkElement.setAttribute('rel', 'stylesheet');
linkElement.setAttribute('type', 'text/css');
linkElement.setAttribute('href', 'data:text/css;charset=UTF-8,' + encodeURIComponent(myStringOfstyles));

This will work in IE 5.5 upwards

The solution you have marked will work but this solution requires fewer dom operations and only a single element.


Edit: As Atspulgs comment suggest, you can achieve the same without jQuery using the querySelector:

document.head.innerHTML += '<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css"/>';

Older answer below.


You could use the jQuery library to select your head element and append HTML to it, in a manner like:

$('head').append('<link rel="stylesheet" href="style2.css" type="text/css" />');

You can find a complete tutorial for this problem here