Home/ Questions/Q 861945
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-15T09:03:39+00:00

I recently went through my CSS file and switched all my six-digit hexadecimal codes

  • 0

I recently went through my CSS file and switched all my six-digit hexadecimal codes to simple three-digit codes (for example, my #FDFEFF got shortened to #FFF).

It renders pretty much the exact same color as before, and it seems to me that the in-between parts are fairly useless and removing them saved me an entire 300 bytes in my CSS file.

Does it matter which version you use? I rarely ever run across websites that use only the three-digit codes (or I guess I just never run across ones that do). Is it still perfectly valid to use three-digit codes over six-digit codes, or are we supposed to use the full six-digit codes?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The three-digit codes are a shorthand, and #123 is the same as #112233. In the example you give, you’ve (effectively) swapped #FDFEFF for #FFFFFF, which is close to the original colour, but obviously not exact.

    It doesn’t "matter" which version you use, as such, but three-digit colour codes mean you have a little less choice in shades. If you feel that saving 300 bytes is worth that, then go ahead and use the three-digit codes, but unless you’re designing for a low-bandwidth situation those 300 bytes won’t really save you all that much.

    • 0