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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T06:24:34+00:00

Like all right-thinking people, I hate to click on a link and discover too

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Like all right-thinking people, I hate to click on a link and discover too late that it leads to a browser-crippling PDF or Microsoft Office file. I thought I’d make life a bit easier for people by displaying a little icon next to links that lead to such files. With IE8 finally supporting the :after pseudo-element, I thought the CSS declaration would be fairly simple:

a.file_pdf:after {
    content:url('/images/pdf.png');
    text-decoration: none;
    padding-left: 5px;
}

In IE8, this works fine. In Firefox and Chrome, though, text-decoration: none is ignored, and the underline stretches unattractively across the bottom of the icon. Is there a way to fix this without “cheating” by using an extra <span> tag?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’m doing it in a different way, using attribute selectors, a background image and a padding (as xandy also suggested):

    a[href$=".pdf"] {
  padding-right: 21px; /* space for the icon */
  background: url(graphics/pdf.png) no-repeat right bottom;
}

    This works in IE7 too.

    Here’s a complete example

    In IE7 the PDF icon won’t be visible as it does not understand data URIs:

    <!DOCTYPE html>

<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>PDF</title>
<style type="text/css">
a:link,
a:visited {
  color: #317408;
  background: #eee;
}
a[href$=".pdf"] {
  padding-right: 21px;
  background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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);
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: right bottom;
}
a:hover {
  color: #eee;
  outline: none;
  background-color: #317408;
  text-decoration: none;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<p>
   <a href="document.pdf">Here's the PDF</a>
</p>

</body>
</html>
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