Thanks, dsonesuk. The entire userContent.css file is: a:link {text-decoration:none; }a:visited { color: #C000C0 !important; background-color: #E0E0E0 !important; }a:hover { text-decoration: underline !important; } Everything works except the background-color part. As I said, this used to work until, I was informed, it was dropped from newer versions of css and browsers stopped supporting it. Remember that I'm not writing these websites, just trying to display them in a reliably readable form. Another text attribute like shadow or outline would be fine if only I could get them to work!!