font-variant

The font-variant CSS shorthand property allows you to set all the font variants for a font.

You can also set the CSS Level 2 (Revision 1) values of font-variant, (that is, normal or small-caps), by using the font shorthand.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

• font-variant-alternates
• font-variant-caps
• font-variant-east-asian
• font-variant-ligatures
• font-variant-numeric

Syntax

font-variant: small-caps;
font-variant: common-ligatures small-caps;

/* Global values */
font-variant: inherit;
font-variant: initial;
font-variant: unset;

Values

normal

Specifies a normal font face; each of the longhand properties has an initial value of normal. Longhand properties of font-variant are: font-variant-caps, font-variant-numeric, font-variant-alternates, font-variant-ligatures, and font-variant-east-asian.

none

Sets the value of the font-variant-ligatures to none and the values of the other longhand property as normal, their initial value.

<common-lig-values>, <discretionary-lig-values>, <historical-lig-values>, <contextual-alt-values>

Specifies the keywords related to the font-variant-ligatures longhand property. The possible values are: common-ligatures, no-common-ligatures, discretionary-ligatures, no-discretionary-ligatures, historical-ligatures, no-historical-ligatures, contextual, and no-contextual.

stylistic(), historical-forms, styleset(), character-variant(), swash(), ornaments(), annotation()

Specifies the keywords and functions related to the font-variant-alternates longhand property.

small-caps, all-small-caps, petite-caps, all-petite-caps, unicase, titling-caps

Specifies the keywords and functions related to the font-variant-caps longhand property.

<numeric-figure-values>, <numeric-spacing-values>, <numeric-fraction-values>, ordinal, slashed-zero

Specifies the keywords related to the font-variant-numeric longhand property. The possible values are: lining-nums, oldstyle-nums, proportional-nums, tabular-nums, diagonal-fractions, stacked-fractions, ordinal, and slashed-zero.

<east-asian-variant-values>, <east-asian-width-values>, ruby

Specifies the keywords related to the font-variant-east-asian longhand property. The possible values are: jis78, jis83, jis90, jis04, simplified, traditional, full-width, proportional-width, ruby.

Formal definition

Formal syntax

normal | none | [ <common-lig-values> | <discretionary-lig-values> | <historical-lig-values> | <contextual-alt-values> | stylistic( <feature-value-name> ) | historical-forms | styleset( <feature-value-name># ) | character-variant( <feature-value-name># ) | swash( <feature-value-name> ) | ornaments( <feature-value-name> ) | annotation( <feature-value-name> ) | [ small-caps | all-small-caps | petite-caps | all-petite-caps | unicase | titling-caps ] | <numeric-figure-values> | <numeric-spacing-values> | <numeric-fraction-values> | ordinal | slashed-zero | <east-asian-variant-values> | <east-asian-width-values> | ruby ]
where 
<common-lig-values> = [ common-ligatures | no-common-ligatures ]
<discretionary-lig-values> = [ discretionary-ligatures | no-discretionary-ligatures ]
<historical-lig-values> = [ historical-ligatures | no-historical-ligatures ]
<contextual-alt-values> = [ contextual | no-contextual ]
<feature-value-name> = <custom-ident>
<numeric-figure-values> = [ lining-nums | oldstyle-nums ]
<numeric-spacing-values> = [ proportional-nums | tabular-nums ]
<numeric-fraction-values> = [ diagonal-fractions | stacked-fractions ]
<east-asian-variant-values> = [ jis78 | jis83 | jis90 | jis04 | simplified | traditional ]
<east-asian-width-values> = [ full-width | proportional-width ]

Examples

Setting the small-caps font variant

HTML

<p class="normal">Firefox rocks!</p>
<p class="small">Firefox rocks!</p>

CSS

p.normal {
  font-variant: normal;
}
p.small {
  font-variant: small-caps;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• text-transform
• text-combine-upright
• text-orientation