Change <br> height using CSS

This feels very hacky, but in chrome 41 on ubuntu I can make a <br> slightly stylable:

br {
  content: "";
  margin: 2em;
  display: block;
  font-size: 24%;
}

I control the spacing with the font size.

Update

I made some test cases to see how the response changes as browsers update.

*{outline: 1px solid hotpink;}
div {
  display: inline-block;
  width: 10rem;
  margin-top: 0;
  vertical-align: top;
}

h2 {
  display: block;
  height: 3rem;
  margin-top:0;
}

.old br {
  content: "";
  margin: 2em;
  display: block;
  font-size: 24%;
  outline: red;
}

.just-font br {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  font-size: 200%;
}
.just-margin br {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  margin: 2em;
}

.brbr br {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  font-size: 100%;
  height: 1em;
  outline: red;
  display: block;
}
<div class="raw">
  <h2>Raw <code>br</code>rrrrs</h2>
  bla<BR><BR>bla<BR>bla<BR><BR>bla
</div>
  
<div class="old">
  <h2>margin & font size</h2>
  bla<BR><BR>bla<BR>bla<BR><BR>bla
</div>
  
<div class="just-font">
  <h2>only font size</h2>
  bla<BR><BR>bla<BR>bla<BR><BR>bla
</div>

 <div class="just-margin">
  <h2>only margin</h2>
  bla<BR><BR>bla<BR>bla<BR><BR>bla
</div>
   
<div class="brbr">
  <h2><code>br</code>others vs only <code>br</code>s</h2>
  bla<BR><BR>bla<BR>bla<BR><BR>bla
</div>

They all have their own version of strange behaviour. Other than the browser default, only the last one respects the difference between one and two brs.


Take a look at the line-height property. Trying to style the <br> tag is not the answer.

Example:

<p id="single-spaced">
  This<br> text
  <br> is
  <br> single-spaced.
</p>
<p id="double-spaced" style="line-height: 200%;">
  This<br> text
  <br> is
  <br> double-spaced.
</p>

You can't change the height of the br tag itself, as it's not an element that takes up space in the page. It's just an instruction to create a new line.

You can change the line height using the line-height style. That will change the distance between the text blocks that you have separated by empty lines, but natually also the distance between lines in a text block.

For completeness: Text blocks in HTML is usually done using the p tag around text blocks. That way you can control the line height inside the p tag, and also the spacing between the p tags.

Tags:

Html

Css

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