Introduction
I am planning to write a series of articles on creating menus in various ways and this is the first one in the series. This article will explain how to create a simple 2-level menu using HTML and CSS only.
We know there are many ways to create an HTML menu but at times, we need to use only HTML/CSS in the project to create a nice menu. So, let's get started.
We will create a HTML structure as below using <ul> and <li> tags. Write the following code in your HTML file where you want to place the menu.
<div class="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Menu 1</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#">Menu 2</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Menu 2.1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Menu 2.2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Menu 2.3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#">Menu 3</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Menu 3.1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Menu 3.2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Menu 3.3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
Now, we have the structure ready. Definitely, the current menu does not look good and we will now apply some CSS to make it look beautiful. Write the following code in the <head> section.
<style type="text/css">
.menu {
width: 500px;
margin: 0px auto;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 14px;
}
.menu ul li a:link,
.menu ul li a:visited {
display: block;
background-color: #f1f1f1;
color: #000;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 4px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;
width: 150px;
}
.menu ul li a:hover {
background-color: #ccc;
}
.menu ul li ul li a:link,
.menu ul li ul li a:visited {
display: block;
background-color: #f1f1f1;
color: #000;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 4px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;
width: 150px;
}
.menu ul li ul li a:hover {
background-color: #ccc;
}
.menu ul {
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
.menu ul li {
float: left;
margin-left: 5px;
}
.menu ul li ul li {
float: none;
margin-left: 0px;
}
.menu ul li ul {
display: none;
}
.menu li:hover ul {
display: block;
}
</style>
Save the HTML file and double-click on it to view it in the browser. Your menu should look something like the following screenshot.
![Menu]()
You can read other parts of this series below.
I hope you like this article! Cheers!