Context-specific usage

While button classes can be used on <a> and <button> elements, only <button> elements are supported within our nav and navbar components.

Links acting as buttons

If the <a> elements are used to act as buttons – triggering in-page functionality, rather than navigating to another document or section within the current page – they should also be given an appropriate role="button".

Cross Browser Rendering

As a best practice, we highly recommend using the <button> element whenever possible to ensure matching cross-browser rendering.

Among other things, there's a bug in Firefox <30 that prevents us from setting the line-height of <input>-based buttons, causing them to not exactly match the height of other buttons on Firefox.

Conveying meaning to assistive technologies

Using color to add meaning to a button only provides a visual indication, which will not be conveyed to users of assistive technologies – such as screen readers. Ensure that information denoted by the color is either obvious from the content itself (the visible text of the button), or is included through alternative means, such as additional text hidden with the .sr-only class.

Use the button classes on an <a>, <button>, or <input> element.

Link
<a class="btn btn-default" href="#" role="button">Link</a>
<button class="btn btn-default" type="submit">Button</button>
<input class="btn btn-default" type="button" value="Input">
<input class="btn btn-default" type="submit" value="Submit">

Button Styles

<button class="btn btn-default">Default</button>
<button class="btn btn-primary">Primary</button>
<button class="btn btn-success">Success</button>
<button class="btn btn-info">Info</button>
<button class="btn btn-warning">Warning</button>
<button class="btn btn-danger">Danger</button>
<button class="btn btn-link">Link</button>

Button sizes

Fancy larger or smaller buttons? Add .btn-lg, .btn-sm, or .btn-xs for additional sizes.

<button class="btn btn-default btn-lg">Large</button>
<button class="btn btn-default">Normal</button>
<button class="btn btn-default btn-sm">Small</button>
<button class="btn btn-default btn-xs">Tiny</button>

Button states

Buttons will appear pressed (with a darker background, darker border, and inset shadow) when active. For <button> elements, this is done via :active. For <a> elements, it’s done with .active. However, you may use .active on <button>s (and include the aria-pressed="true" attribute) should you need to replicate the active state programmatically.

Cross browser compatibility

If you add the disabled attribute to a <button>, Internet Explorer 9 and below will render text gray with a nasty text-shadow that we cannot fix.

Link functionality caveat

This class uses pointer-events: none to try to disable the link functionality of <a>s, but that CSS property is not yet standardized and isn't fully supported in Opera 18 and below, or in Internet Explorer 11. In addition, even in browsers that do support pointer-events: none, keyboard navigation remains unaffected, meaning that sighted keyboard users and users of assistive technologies will still be able to activate these links. So to be safe, use custom JavaScript to disable such links.

Button Button
<button type="button" class="btn btn-default active">Button</button>
<a href="#" class="btn btn-default active">Button</a>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-default" disabled="disabled">Button</button>
<a href="#" class="btn btn-default disabled">Button</a>