Do you want to change the default text selection color in WordPress?
You can make your WordPress site stand out by paying attention to the small details, such as having the text selection color match your site’s color scheme.
In this article, we will show you how to change the default text selection color in your WordPress theme.
Why Change the Default Text Selection Color?
Colors are an important part of your brand image, so you should spend time choosing the perfect color scheme. In this way, you can boost your site’s appeal so visitors stay for longer, which will increase your pageviews and reduce your bounce rates.
One detail that’s often overlooked is the highlight color of selected text. The default color won’t look good on every website.
Your WordPress theme may give you the option to change this color, but most don’t. If yours does not, then you can change the text selection color using a plugin or a code snippet.
With that being said, let’s see how you can change the default text selection color in WordPress. Simply use the links below to jump to the method you want to use.
Method 1: Using a Plugin to Change Text Selection Color (Recommended)
The easiest way to change the default text selection color in WordPress is by using Custom Highlight Color. This plugin allows you to select a custom text selection color, but the result may not look exactly the same on all web browsers.
If you’re not happy with the result after testing your website in different browsers, then we recommend using method 2 instead.
The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the Custom Highlight Color plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Appearance » Customize on your WordPress dashboard. Then, select the ‘Colors’ tab.
Under ‘Highlight Color,’ use the color picker to choose a new default text selection color.
Another option is to type in the hex code that you want to use.
When you’re happy with the new text selection color, you can click on Publish to make this change live.
After that, it’s smart to look at your WordPress blog in a few different browsers to make sure you’re happy with the new text selection color. If you don’t like how it looks, then you can always try a different color or move on to method 2.
Method 2: Using Code to Change Text Selection Color
The second method uses a CSS code snippet. If you’re new to using code snippets, then you might like to check our guide on how to easily add custom CSS to your WordPress site.
In this tutorial, we’ll use the Theme Customizer.
To start, head over to Appearance » Customize in your WordPress dashboard. Once there, you need to click on Additional CSS at the bottom of the list.
Now, simply copy and paste the following styles into the small code editor:
::-moz-selection {
background-color: #ff6200;
color: #fff;
}
::selection {
background-color: #ff6200;
color: #fff;
}
Notice that we added two styles. The ::moz-selection CSS selector works with the Firefox browser, and the ::selection CSS selector works with other popular browsers such as Chrome, Safari, IE9+, and Opera.
For background-color we’re using hex codes, which you’ll need to replace with the color you want to use. If you’re not sure what code to use, then you can explore different colors and get their codes using the HTML Color Codes website.
Once you’e changed the background-color values in the code snippet above, click the Publish button at the top of the screen.
You can now visit your website to see the change in action.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to change the default text selection color in WordPress. You may also want to see how our guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress and check out our list of the best WordPress drag and drop page builder plugins.
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Michael says
Thank you so much for your post ! Clear and useful.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found our content helpful
Admin
Lynne Clay says
Is there a way to change just my posts titles color without having to change the coding? I don’t understand anything about coding and don’t want to mess with that anyway.
WPBeginner Support says
While it requires coding, if you wanted customizations without needing to understand the code you could look into a plugin such as CSS Hero which we have reviewed here:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/css-hero-review-wordpress-design-customization-made-easy/
Admin
Samar Jamil says
Thanks for this awesome post.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome
Admin
KrishnaChaitanya says
Thank you very much, your service was excellent. Lot to learn from you.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our tutorial was helpful
Admin
Adrian Wallis says
Thanks, it worked great for me in a Twenty Fourteen Child. Hopefully that is the last of the default green gone from template
Michele says
I tried this but it didn’t work… I’m using Thesis, does that make a difference?
Editorial Staff says
Not that we know of because it is a basic CSS change. The only thing we can think of is that thesis is overriding your styles maybe?
Admin
Marvin says
Hello there,
I just copied your code in my Genesis eleven40 child theme but it is not working.
Thank You
Editorial Staff says
It should work just fine unless eleven40 has it’s own styles pre-defined. In which case you would need to override them by adding an !important value in yours.
Admin
Lauren says
Oh my gosh. I have been searching tirelessly all over the internet for the solution to this problem, but to no avail. But this response to Marvin’s question solved it! So simple. Thanks so much!!!!!
David Abramson says
Cool trick. I am working on a website in Genesis and like my tech support guy says, “it’s as easy as drinking a glass of water”
Thanks!
-David
Brad Dalton says
Chris Coyier posted this on css-tricks.com back in 2009 http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/change-text-selection-color/
Editorial Staff says
Ah well, didn’t know about it until we saw it on Brian’s site.
Admin
Keith Davis says
Yes I saw it on Brian Gardner’s site.
Never knew you could change the selection colours until I read his article.
Not sure if I would ever use it, but nice to know it can be done.
Josh McCarty says
This is one of those simple things that many people probably won’t notice, but it’s a nice “extra” to add to a website. I first saw it in HTML5 Boilerplate and use it frequently on sites that I build.
bungeshea says
You actually can combine them, like this:
::selection,
::-moz-selection {
background-color: #ff6200;
color: #fff;
}
Editorial Staff says
We saw this tutorial on Brian’s site. He suggests that combining them will not work (not sure which environment it was not working). But we’d stick with what we know works.
Admin
Clean Digital says
Nice post. Just updated our site with a nice red background! Cheers!
Gautam Doddamani says
genesis has a nice text selection color. your site’s is orange which is cool
p.s. speaking about site appearances, yoast.com got an upgrade too, he is also now using the genesis framework kudos to that!
Editorial Staff says
Yup, Genesis is a very good framework to build your site on.
Admin