Editing Web colors (section)

===Shorthand hexadecimal form===
An abbreviated, three (hexadecimal)-digit or four-digit form can be used,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#rgb-color |publisher=W3C |work=CSS Color Module Level 3 |title=4.2.1. RGB color values |date=7 June 2011 |editor1-first=Tantek |editor1-last=Çelik |editor2-first=Chris |editor2-last=Lilley |editor3-first=L. David |editor3-last=Baron |first1=Steven |last1=Pemberton |first2=Brad |last2=Pettit |access-date=19 March 2013 }}</ref> but can cause errors if software or maintenance scripts are only expecting the long form. Expanding this form to the six-digit form is as simple as repeating each digit: 09C becomes 0099CC as presented on the following [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] example:

<syntaxhighlight lang="css">
.threedigit { color: #09C;    }
.sixdigit   { color: #0099CC; } /* same color as above */
</syntaxhighlight>

This shorthand form reduces the palette to 4,096 colors, equivalent of 12-bit color as opposed to 24-bit color using the whole six-digit form (16,777,216 colors). This limitation is sufficient for many text-based documents.