The used value of a CSS property is its value after all calculations have been performed on the computed value.
After the user agent has finished its calculations, every CSS property has a used value. The used values of dimensions (e.g., width, line-height) are in pixels. The used values of shorthand properties (e.g., background) are consistent with those of their component properties (e.g., background-color or background-size) and with position and float.
Example
This example computes and displays the used width value of three elements (updates on resize):
HTML
<div id="no-width">
<p>No explicit width.</p>
<p class="show-used-width">..</p>
<div id="width-50">
<p>Explicit width: 50%.</p>
<p class="show-used-width">..</p>
<div id="width-inherit">
<p>Explicit width: inherit.</p>
<p class="show-used-width">..</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
CSS
#no-width {
width: auto;
}
#width-50 {
width: 50%;
}
#width-inherit {
width: inherit;
}
div {
border: 1px solid red;
padding: 8px;
}
JavaScript
function updateUsedWidth(id) {
const div = document.getElementById(id);
const par = div.querySelector(".show-used-width");
const wid = window.getComputedStyle(div)["width"];
par.textContent = `Used width: ${wid}.`;
}
function updateAllUsedWidths() {
updateUsedWidth("no-width");
updateUsedWidth("width-50");
updateUsedWidth("width-inherit");
}
updateAllUsedWidths();
window.addEventListener("resize", updateAllUsedWidths);
Difference from computed value
CSS 2.0 defined only computed value as the last step in a property's calculation. Then, CSS 2.1 introduced the distinct definition of used value. An element could then explicitly inherit a width/height of a parent, whose computed value is a percentage. For CSS properties that don't depend on layout (e.g., display, font-size, or line-height), the computed values and used values are the same. The following are the CSS 2.1 properties that do depend on layout, so they have a different computed value and used value: (taken from CSS 2.1 Changes: Specified, computed, and actual values):
background-positionbottom, left, right, topheight, widthmargin-bottom, margin-left, margin-right, margin-topmin-height, min-widthpadding-bottom, padding-left, padding-right, padding-toptext-indent
Specifications