text-emphasis

The text-emphasis CSS property is a shorthand property for setting text-emphasis-style and text-emphasis-color in one declaration. This property will apply the specified emphasis mark to each character of the element's text, except separator characters, like spaces, and control characters.

/* 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;

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.

text-emphasis doesn't reset the value of text-emphasis-position. This is because if the style and the color of emphasis marks may vary in a text, it is extremely unlikely that their position will. In the very rare cases when this is needed, the property text-emphasis-position.

Initial value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-emphasis-style`: `none` `text-emphasis-color`: `currentcolor`
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	no
Media	visual
Computed value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-emphasis-style`: as specified `text-emphasis-color`: computed color
Animation type	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-emphasis-color`: a color `text-emphasis-style`: discrete
Canonical order	order of appearance in the formal grammar of the values

Syntax

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 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

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3 The definition of 'text-emphasis' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Initial definition

Feature	Firefox (Gecko)	Chrome	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	46 (46)^[1]	25.0-webkit	No support	15.0-webkit	6.1-webkit 7.1

Feature	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	Android	IE Phone	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile
Basic support	46 (46)^[1]	4.4-webkit	No support	33-webkit	7.1

[1] In Firefox 45, it wasn't activated by default: in about:config, the user has to set the preference layout.css.text-emphasis.enabled to true. Activated by default in Firefox 46, this preference was removed in Firefox 49.