CSS Text - Color, Alignment, Decoration etc. | CSS for Beginners - Class 6 PDF Download

CSS Text Properties

• CSS has a lot of properties for formatting text.

Text Color

• a color name - like "red
• a HEX value - like "#ff0000"
• an RGB value - like "rgb(255,0,0)"
• Look at CSS Color Values for a complete list of possible color values.
• The default text color for a page is defined in the body selector.

Example

body {

  color: blue;

}

h1 {

  color: green;

}

Text Color and Background Color
In this example, we define both the background-color property and the color property:

Example

body {

  background-color: lightgrey;

  color: blue;

}

h1 {

  background-color: black;

  color: white;

}

div {

  background-color: blue;

  color: white;

}

The CSS Text Color Property

CSS Text Alignment

(i) text-align
(ii) text-align-last
(iii) direction
(iv) unicode-bidi
(v) vertical-align

Text Alignment

• The text-align property is used to set the horizontal alignment of a text.
• A text can be left or right aligned, centered, or justified.

The following example shows center aligned, and left and right aligned text (left alignment is default if text direction is left-to-right, and right alignment is default if text direction is right-to-left):

Example

h1 {

  text-align: center;

}

h2 {

  text-align: left;

}

h3 {

  text-align: right;

}

When the text-align property is set to "justify", each line is stretched so that every line has equal width, and the left and right margins are straight (like in magazines and newspapers):

Example

div {

  text-align: justify;

}

Text Align Last
The text-align-last property specifies how to align the last line of a text.

Example
Align the last line of text in three <p> elements:

p.a {

  text-align-last: right;

}

p.b {

  text-align-last: center;

}

p.c {

  text-align-last: justify;

}

Text Direction
The direction and unicode-bidi properties can be used to change the text direction of an element:

Example

p {

  direction: rtl;

  unicode-bidi: bidi-override;

}

Vertical Alignment
The vertical-align property sets the vertical alignment of an element.

Example
Set the vertical alignment of an image in a text: 

img.a {

  vertical-align: baseline;

}

img.b {

  vertical-align: text-top;

}

img.c {

  vertical-align: text-bottom;

}

img.d {

  vertical-align: sub;

}

img.e {

  vertical-align: super;

}

The CSS Text Alignment/Direction Properties

CSS Text Decoration

• text-decoration-line
• text-decoration-color
• text-decoration-style
• text-decoration-thickness
• text-decoration

Add a Decoration Line to Text
The text-decoration-line property is used to add a decoration line to text.

Tip: You can combine more than one value, like overline and underline to display lines both over and under a text.

Example

h1 {

  text-decoration-line: overline;

}

h2 {

  text-decoration-line: line-through;

}

h3 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

}

p {

  text-decoration-line: overline underline;

}

Specify a Color for the Decoration Line
The text-decoration-color property is used to set the color of the decoration line.

Example

h1 {

  text-decoration-line: overline;

  text-decoration-color: red;

}

h2 {

  text-decoration-line: line-through;

  text-decoration-color: blue;

}

h3 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-color: green;

}

p {

  text-decoration-line: overline underline;

  text-decoration-color: purple;

}

Specify a Style for the Decoration Line
The text-decoration-style property is used to set the style of the decoration line.

Example

h1 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-style: solid;

}

h2 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-style: double;

}

h3 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-style: dotted;

}

p.ex1 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-style: dashed;

}

p.ex2 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-style: wavy;

}

p.ex3 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-color: red;

  text-decoration-style: wavy;

}

Specify the Thickness for the Decoration Line
The text-decoration-thickness property is used to set the thickness of the decoration line.

Example

h1 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-thickness: auto;

}

h2 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-thickness: 5px;

}

h3 {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-thickness: 25%;

}

p {

  text-decoration-line: underline;

  text-decoration-color: red;

  text-decoration-style: double;

  text-decoration-thickness: 5px;

}

The Shorthand Property

• text-decoration-line (required)
• text-decoration-color (optional)
• text-decoration-style (optional)
• text-decoration-thickness (optional)

Example

h1 {

  text-decoration: underline;

}

h2 {

  text-decoration: underline red;

}

h3 {

  text-decoration: underline red double;

}

p {

  text-decoration: underline red double 5px;

}

A Small Tip
All links in HTML are underlined by default. Sometimes you see that links are styled with no underline. The text-decoration: none; is used to remove the underline from links, like this:

Example

a {

  text-decoration: none;

}

All CSS text-decoration Properties

CSS Text Transformation

Example

p.uppercase {

  text-transform: uppercase;

}

p.lowercase {

  text-transform: lowercase;

}

p.capitalize {

  text-transform: capitalize;

}

The CSS Text Transformation Property

CSS Text Spacing

• text-indent
• letter-spacing
• line-height
• word-spacing
• white-space

Text Indentation
The text-indent property is used to specify the indentation of the first line of a text:

Example

p {

  text-indent: 50px;

}

Letter Spacing
The letter-spacing property is used to specify the space between the characters in a text.
The following example demonstrates how to increase or decrease the space between characters:

Example

h1 {

  letter-spacing: 5px;

}

h2 {

  letter-spacing: -2px;

}

Line Height
The line-height property is used to specify the space between lines:

Example

p.small {

  line-height: 0.8;

}

p.big {

  line-height: 1.8;

}

Word Spacing
The word-spacing property is used to specify the space between the words in a text.
The following example demonstrates how to increase or decrease the space between words:

Example

p.one {

  word-spacing: 10px;

}

p.two {

  word-spacing: -2px;

}

White Space
The white-space property specifies how white-space inside an element is handled.
This example demonstrates how to disable text wrapping inside an element:

Example

p {

  white-space: nowrap;

}

The CSS Text Spacing Properties

CSS Text Shadow

In its simplest use, you only specify the horizontal shadow (2px) and the vertical shadow (2px):

Example

h1 {

  text-shadow: 2px 2px;

}

Next, add a color (red) to the shadow:

Then, add a blur effect (5px) to the shadow:

Example

h1 {

  text-shadow: 2px 2px 5px red;

}

More Text Shadow Examples

h1 {

  color: white;

  text-shadow: 2px 2px 4px #000000;

}

Example 2
Text-shadow with red neon glow:

h1 {

  text-shadow: 0 0 3px #ff0000;

}

Example 3
Text-shadow with red and blue neon glow:

h1 {

  text-shadow: 0 0 3px #ff0000, 0 0 5px #0000ff;

}

Example 4

h1 {

  color: white;

  text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px black, 0 0 25px blue, 0 0 5px darkblue;

}

The CSS Text Shadow Property