DEV Community

Cover image for Em v/s REM
Rahul
Rahul

Posted on • Updated on

Em v/s REM

The essential difference between em and rem is that rem is "root em".
Now that out of the way let's first see what actually em is?

EM

EM is relative to the current font size of the parent element. This basically means that if the font size of the parent element is 16px then

1em == 16px
2em == 32px
3em == 48px
4em == 64px
and so on...
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This is super cool because now you can use these relative units to size up almost everything perfectly!

And as a matter of fact, this unit also works on padding, margin, border, and whatnot.
Padding, margins, borders, height, etc. directly relates to the font-size of the current element.

Look at the example below and the explanation even below.

<div class="main">
  <div class="container">
    <div class="em">
      <h1>EM</h1>
      <h3>This section explains EM</h3>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
html {
  font-size: 16px;
}

body {
  font-size: 1em;
}

.container {
  font-size: 2em;
}

.em {
  font-size: 2em;
}

.em h1 {
  font-size: 2.5em
}

.em h3 {
  font-size: 0.5em;
}

.em>.block {
  font-size: 0.5em;
  border: 0.1em solid #000;
  padding: 1em;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

A caveat to em is that it supports compounding, which means if you have nested divs, each setting font-size based on em unit than the nested divs will compound the size starting from the root element to itself.

Here the font size of the "h1" tag would be:

16px * 1 * 2 * 2 * 2.5 = 160px;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And the font size of the "h3" tag would be

16px * 1 * 2 * 2 * 0.5 = 32px;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And the size of "1em" in ".block" div would be

16px * 1 * 2 * 2 * 0.5 = 32px;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Hence,

padding: 1em             == padding: 32px;
border: 0.1em solid #000 == border: 3.2px solid #000
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

https://codepen.io/holdmypotion/pen/yLaZBbV

To fix up the compounding effect of em units(that quite frankly is a nuisance), rem was introduced(probably!)

REM

REM is relative to the font size of the root element. This solves the problem of compounding that occurs in the case of em. Whatever the font size of the parent element maybe, 1rem unit stays equal to the font size set in the HTML tag

html {
    font-size: 32px;
}
/*Now 1rem == 32px */
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Look at the example below:

<div class="main">
  <div class="container">
    <div class="rem">
      <h1>REM</h1>
      <h3>This section explains REM</h3>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
html {
  font-size: 32px;
}

body {
  font-size: 1rem;
}

.container {
  font-size: 2rem;
}

.rem {
    /* Have no effect as we are setting the font size of h1 and h3
         seperately using rem.
    */
  font-size: 2rem;
}

.rem h1 {
  font-size: 3rem
}

.rem h3 {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

REM doesn't support compounding, which means all elements set their sizes based on the font-size of the root element

Here the font size of the "h1" tag would be:

16px * 3 = 48px;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And the font size of the "h3" tag would be:

16px * 1.2 = 19.2px;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

https://codepen.io/holdmypotion/pen/QWKBwbG

Top comments (5)

Collapse
 
valeriavg profile image
Valeria

This doesn't seem right: 'em' is not an 'emphemeral' unit, it got this name from the uppercase letter 'M' (em) as most of CSS units come from typography.

Collapse
 
holdmypotion profile image
Rahul

Wait, you have literally made a super valid point. I googled it and found this 👇
But this is the only site saying this. Most of the other websites state the same fact as you are saying.
My bad I guess!
Thanks for the info, mate!

Collapse
 
holdmypotion profile image
Rahul

And as a matter of fact "emphemeral" is not even a word. LOL!

Collapse
 
cmcodes profile image
C M Pandey

Quote from “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design”

“An em is a CSS unit that measures the size of a font, from the top of a font’s cap height to the bottom of its lowest descender. Originally, the em was equal to the width of the capital letter M, which is where its name originated.”

Collapse
 
holdmypotion profile image
Rahul

That's just perfect!