Global Styles

GlobalStyle is a new component in v1 that injects styles defined in theme.styles.global into the global styles of your app or website.

This allows you define theme-aware styles for any elements.

How it works#

By using ChakraProvider at the root of your application, we automatically render a GlobalStyle component. Here's what GlobalStyle does under the hood:

  • Reads the styles defined in theme.styles.global, this style can be a style object or a function that returns a style object.
  • Process the styles and pass it to emotion's Global component which is used to handle global style injection.
// 1. Using a style object
const theme = {
styles: {
global: {
"html, body": {
fontSize: "sm",
color: "gray.600",
lineHeight: "tall",
},
a: {
color: "teal.500",
},
},
},
}
// 2. Using a function
// NB: Chakra gives you access to `colorMode` and `theme` in `props`
const theme = {
styles: {
global: (props) => ({
"html, body": {
fontSize: "sm",
color: props.colorMode === "dark" ? "white" : "gray.600",
lineHeight: "tall",
},
a: {
color: props.colorMode === "dark" ? "teal.300" : "teal.500",
},
}),
},
}

Default styles#

The default Chakra theme provides sensible global styles. Here's what it looks like:

const styles = {
global: (props) => ({
fontFamily: "body",
color: mode("gray.800", "whiteAlpha.900")(props),
bg: mode("white", "gray.800")(props),
lineHeight: "base",
"*::placeholder": {
color: mode("gray.400", "whiteAlpha.400")(props),
},
"*, *::before, &::after": {
borderColor: mode("gray.200", "whiteAlpha.300")(props),
wordWrap: "break-word",
},
fontFeatureSettings: `"pnum"`,
fontVariantNumeric: "proportional-nums",
}),
}

Note 🚨: mode(lightMode, darkMode)(props) function is the same as props.colorMode === "dark" ? darkMode : lightMode

Styling non-Chakra elements globally#

When combining Chakra with other libraries, you might need a way to style some elements in those libraries using the theme defined tokens.

Let's say you have a blog written in mdx and you'd like to style all the MDX elements globally. Here's what you'll do.

// 1. Wrap the rendered mdx in a container
const MDXWrapper = (props) => <div className="mdx-prose" {...props} />
// 2. Define global styles
// PRO TIP: Again, you can also use the function version here
const theme = {
styles: {
global: {
".mdx-prose": {
h1: {
fontSize: "xl",
mb: "4",
},
p: {
fontSize: "sm",
lineHeight: "1.4",
},
},
},
},
}
// 3. That's it! Your app will now read and use the global styles

Community examples#

To help you better understand this concept, here are links to community projects that use custom global styles.

  • Gatsby Starter i18n
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