<system-color>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The <system-color> CSS data type usually reflects the default color choices used for the different parts of a web page.

However, user agents can provide an accessibility feature called forced colors mode, in which colors are restricted into a user- and user agent-defined palette, overriding the author's choice of colors in certain properties. In forced colors mode, <system-color> exposes the chosen colors, so that the rest of the page can integrate with them. An example of forced colors mode is high contrast mode on Windows.

In forced colors mode, authors should use colors from the <system-color> type for all properties that are not in the set of properties whose colors are overridden. This ensures that the page consistently uses the same color palette across all properties.

Authors can detect forced colors mode using the forced-colors media feature.

A <system-color> value can be used anywhere a <color> can be used.

Syntax

Note that these keywords are case insensitive, but are listed here with mixed case for readability.

AccentColor: Background of accented user interface controls
AccentColorText: Text of accented user interface controls
ActiveText: Text of active links
ButtonBorder: Base border color of controls
ButtonFace: Background color of controls
ButtonText: Text color of controls
Canvas: Background of application content or documents
CanvasText: Text color in application content or documents
Field: Background of input fields
FieldText: Text in input fields
GrayText: Text color for disabled items (e.g. a disabled control)
Highlight: Background of selected items
HighlightText: Text color of selected items
LinkText: Text of non-active, non-visited links
Mark: Background of text that has been specially marked (such as by the HTML mark element)
MarkText: Text that has been specially marked (such as by the HTML mark element)
SelectedItem: Background of selected items, for example, a selected checkbox
SelectedItemText: Text of selected items
VisitedText: Text of visited links

Deprecated system color keywords

The following keywords were defined in earlier versions of the CSS Color Module. They are now deprecated for use on public web pages.

ActiveBorder: Active window border.
ActiveCaption: Active window caption. Should be used with CaptionText as foreground color.
AppWorkspace: Background color of multiple document interface.
Background: Desktop background.
ButtonHighlight: The color of the border facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to that layer of surrounding border.
ButtonShadow: The color of the border away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to that layer of surrounding border.
CaptionText: Text in caption, size box, and scrollbar arrow box. Should be used with the ActiveCaption background color.
InactiveBorder: Inactive window border.
InactiveCaption: Inactive window caption. Should be used with the InactiveCaptionText foreground color.
InactiveCaptionText: Color of text in an inactive caption. Should be used with the InactiveCaption background color.
InfoBackground: Background color for tooltip controls. Should be used with the InfoText foreground color.
InfoText: Text color for tooltip controls. Should be used with the InfoBackground background color.
Menu: Menu background. Should be used with the MenuText or -moz-MenuBarText foreground color.
MenuText: Text in menus. Should be used with the Menu background color.
Scrollbar: Background color of scroll bars.
ThreeDDarkShadow: The color of the darker (generally outer) of the two borders away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDFace: The face background color for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border. Should be used with the ButtonText foreground color.
ThreeDHighlight: The color of the lighter (generally outer) of the two borders facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDLightShadow: The color of the darker (generally inner) of the two borders facing the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
ThreeDShadow: The color of the lighter (generally inner) of the two borders away from the light source for 3-D elements that appear 3-D due to two concentric layers of surrounding border.
Window: Window background. Should be used with the WindowText foreground color.
WindowFrame: Window frame.
WindowText: Text in windows. Should be used with the Window background color.

Examples

Using system colors

In this example we have a button that normally gets its contrast using the box-shadow property. In forced colors mode, box-shadow is forced to none, so the example uses the forced-colors media feature to ensure there is a border of the appropriate color (ButtonBorder in this case).

HTML

html

<button class="button">Press me!</button>

CSS

css

.button {
  border: 0;
  padding: 10px;
  box-shadow:
    -2px -2px 5px gray,
    2px 2px 5px gray;
}

@media (forced-colors: active) {
  .button {
    /* Use a border instead, since box-shadow
    is forced to 'none' in forced-colors mode */
    border: 2px ButtonBorder solid;
  }
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Color Module Level 4 # css-system-colors

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser