How to style the Telerik RadTextBox

Styling the Telerik RadTextBox can feel a little opaque, especially when you’re trying to override theme defaults that Telerik applies deep inside its CSS. Whether you’re adjusting colors, weights, or the way NullText behaves, the key is understanding which internal classes Telerik uses and how to override them safely. In this article, we’ll walk through the essential selectors you need, show what Telerik applies behind the scenes, and demonstrate how to take full control of the RadTextBox’s appearance with simple, targeted CSS. If you’ve ever fought with disabled or empty-state styling, this guide will save you time.

 

The RadTextBox renders its editable area inside an element with the class .rtbInput, and Telerik themes often apply color, opacity, and font rules that override your site’s defaults. If you want consistent styling, especially for NullText or disabled states, you need to target Telerik’s internal classes directly.


A basic global override looks like this:

input {
    color: black !important;
    font-weight:normal !important;
 
}

This works, but it’s broad. A more precise approach is to target the RadTextBox structure itself:

/* Style the disabled textbox itself */
.RadInput .riTextBox.riDisabled {
    background-color: #f0f0f0 !important;
    color: #666 !important;
    border-color: #ccc !important;
    cursor: not-allowed;
}

If you’re styling NullText, Telerik uses .rtbEmpty, and for disabled controls it adds .rtbDisabled. Overriding those gives you full control:

/*Styles the text box */
html body .RadInput_MetroTouch .riTextBox {
    border-color: #e0dfdf;
    color: blue !important;
    background-color: #fff;
    font: 100 16px "Segoe UI",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif
}
/* Style the disabled textbox itself */
.RadInput .riTextBox.riDisabled {
    background-color: #f0f0f0 !important;
    color: red !important;
    border-color: #ccc !important;
    cursor: not-allowed;
}

 

 

 


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