CSS Shorthand Colors

I have seen plenty of articles on CSS shorthand (tips for conserving bytes in your CSS syntax), but I have never seen one that mentions when to use color names over their hexidecimal codes.

There are 16 colors names which are supported by all major browsers:

1. white: #fff
2. yellow: #ff0
3. red: #ff0
4. fuscia: #f0f
5. silver: #c0c0c0
6. gray: #808080
7. olive: #808000
8. purple: #800080
9. maroon: #800000
10. aqua: #f00
11. lime: #0f0
12. teal: #008080
13. green: #008000
14. blue: #00f
15. navy: #000080
16. black: #000

While there is a longer list of color names which are supported by some browsers, the 16 above are the only ones which can safely be assumed to be properly supported by all browsers. Its trivial to see that for 9 of the 16 colors it is shorter to use the color name, while in the other 7, its better to use the hex value.

Here are the color names you should remember and use over their hex values:

1. red
2. silver
3. gray
4. olive
5. purple
6. maroon
7. teal
8. green
9. navy