text-emphasis

The text-emphasis CSS property applies emphasis marks to text (except spaces and control characters). It is a shorthand for text-emphasis-style and text-emphasis-color.

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.

The text-emphasis property is quite different from text-decoration. The text-decoration property does not inherit, and the decoration specified is applied across the whole element. However, text-emphasis does inherit, which means it is possible to change emphasis marks for descendents.

The size of the emphasis symbol, like ruby symbols, is about 50% of the size of the font, and text-emphasis may affect line height when the current leading is not enough for the marks.

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

• text-emphasis-color
• text-emphasis-style

Syntax

/* Initial value */
text-emphasis: none; /* No emphasis marks */

/* <string> value */
text-emphasis: 'x';
text-emphasis: '点';
text-emphasis: '\25B2';
text-emphasis: '*' #555;
text-emphasis: 'foo'; /* Should NOT use. It may be computed to or rendered as 'f' only */

/* Keywords value */
text-emphasis: filled;
text-emphasis: open;
text-emphasis: filled sesame;
text-emphasis: open sesame;

/* Keywords value combined with a color */
text-emphasis: filled sesame #555;

/* Global values */
text-emphasis: inherit;
text-emphasis: initial;
text-emphasis: unset;

Values

none

No emphasis marks.

filled

The shape is filled with solid color. If neither filled nor open is present, this is the default.

open

The shape is hollow.

dot

Display small circles as marks. The filled dot is '•' (U+2022), and the open dot is '◦' (U+25E6).

circle

Display large circles as marks. The filled circle is '●' (U+25CF), and the open circle is '○' (U+25CB). This is the default shape in horizontal writing modes when no other shape is given.

double-circle

Display double circles as marks. The filled double-circle is '◉' (U+25C9), and the open double-circle is '◎' (U+25CE).

triangle

Display triangles as marks. The filled triangle is '▲' (U+25B2), and the open triangle is '△' (U+25B3).

sesame

Display sesames as marks. The filled sesame is '﹅' (U+FE45), and the open sesame is '﹆' (U+FE46). This is the default shape in vertical writing modes when no other shape is given.

<string>

Display the given string as marks. Authors should not specify more than one character in <string>. The UA may truncate or ignore strings consisting of more than one grapheme cluster.

<color>

Defines the color of the mark. If no color is present, it defaults to currentcolor.

Formal definition

Formal syntax

<'text-emphasis-style'> | <'text-emphasis-color'>

Examples

A heading with emphasis shape and color

This example draws a heading with triangles used to emphasize each character.

CSS

h2 {
  text-emphasis: triangle #D55;
}

HTML

<h2>This is important!</h2>

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also

• The longhand properties text-emphasis-style, text-emphasis-color.
• The text-emphasis-position property allowing to define the position of the emphasis marks.