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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T21:42:40+00:00

The following is taken from the Yahoo CSS reset. Can someone please explain the

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The following is taken from the Yahoo CSS reset. Can someone please explain the purpose of the asterisks?

body {
  font:13px/1.231 arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;
  *font-size:small;
  *font:x-small;
}
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It is a browser specific CSS hack for versions 7 or below of Internet Explorer.

    *property: value

    Although Internet Explorer 7 corrected
    its behavior when a property name is
    prefixed with an underscore or a
    hyphen, other non-alphanumeric
    character prefixes are treated as they
    were in IE6. Therefore, if you add a
    non-alphanumeric character such as an
    asterisk (*) immediately before a
    property name, the property will be
    applied in IE and not in other
    browsers. Unlike with the hyphen and
    underscore method, the CSS
    specification makes no reservations
    for the asterisk as a prefix, so use
    of this hack could result in
    unexpected behavior as the CSS
    specifications evolve.

    *property: value applies the property value in IE 7 and below. It may or may
    not work in future versions. Warning:
    this uses invalid CSS.

    From: http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/csshacks3.shtml

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