text-emphasis-position

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2022.

The text-emphasis-position CSS property sets where emphasis marks are drawn. Similar to the text rendered by the <ruby> HTML element, if there isn't enough room for emphasis marks, the line height is increased.

Try it

Syntax

css

/* Initial value */
text-emphasis-position: auto;

/* Keyword values */
text-emphasis-position: over;
text-emphasis-position: under;

text-emphasis-position: over right;
text-emphasis-position: over left;
text-emphasis-position: under right;
text-emphasis-position: under left;

text-emphasis-position: left over;
text-emphasis-position: right over;
text-emphasis-position: right under;
text-emphasis-position: left under;

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

Values

The property accepts one or two values:

If only one value is provided, it can be auto, over, or under. When only over or under is used, right is assumed as the default position.
If two values are provided, they must include one of over or underand one of right or left. Their order does not matter.

The values include:

auto: Draws marks over the text in horizontal writing mode and to the right of the text in vertical writing mode.
over: Draws marks over the text in horizontal writing mode.
under: Draws marks under the text in horizontal writing mode.
right: Draws marks to the right of the text in vertical writing mode.
left: Draws marks to the left of the text in vertical writing mode.

Description

The preferred position of emphasis marks depends on the language. In Japanese for example, the preferred position is over right. In Chinese, on the other hand, the preferred position is under right. The informative table below summarizes the preferred emphasis mark positions for Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese:

Emphasis marks appear over each emphasized character in horizontal Japanese text.

Emphasis marks appear on the right of each emphasized character in vertical Japanese text.

Preferred emphasis mark and ruby position
Language	Preferred position	Illustration
Japanese	over	right
Korean
Mongolian
Chinese	under	right

Note: The text-emphasis-position cannot be set, and therefore are not reset either, using the text-emphasis shorthand property.

Formal definition

Initial value	`auto`
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

text-emphasis-position = 
  [ over | under ]   &&
  [ right | left ]?

Examples

Adding emphasis mark positions

Use the drop down menu to change the position of the emphasis marks. This will change the class on the <section> element, which in turn, will update the position of the emphasis marks on the text.

HTML

<p class="unsupported">The <code>auto</code> value is not supported in your browser.</p>
<label for="position">Emphasis position:</position>
<select id="position">
  <option value="auto">auto</option>
  <option value="over-right">over right</option>
  <option value="over-left">over left</option>
  <option value="under-right">under right</option>
  <option value="under-left">under left</option>
  <option value="preferred">preferred</option>
</select>

html

<section id="setting" class="auto">
  <p class="horizontal" lang="zh">你好世界</p>
  <!-- Hello World in Chinese -->
  <p class="vertical" lang="ja">世界、こんにちは。</p>
  <!-- Hello World in Japanese -->
</section>

CSS

.unsupported {
  color: red;
}
@supports (text-emphasis-position: auto) {
  .unsupported {
    display: none;
  }
}
.horizontal {
  writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
}
.vertical {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
}
section {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-around;
}

css

section p {
  text-emphasis: filled circle tomato;
  text-emphasis-position: auto;
}
.over-right p,
.preferred p [lang="ja"] {
  text-emphasis-position: over right;
}
.over-left p {
  text-emphasis-position: over left;
}
.under-right p,
.preferred p [lang="zh"] {
  text-emphasis-position: under right;
}
.under-left p {
  text-emphasis-position: under left;
}
.preferred p [lang="ja"] {
}

const position = document.querySelector("#position");
const setting = document.querySelector("#setting");
const updateClass = () => {
  const currentClass = setting.classList;
  setting.classList.replace(currentClass, position.value);
};
position.addEventListener("change", updateClass);

Result

Use the "Emphasis position" drop down to choose the location of the emphasis marks. The preferred option in the drop down uses the preferred positions, as explained in the Description section.

Preferring ruby over emphasis marks

Some editors prefer to hide emphasis marks when they conflict with ruby. In HTML, this can be done with the following style rule:

css

ruby {
  text-emphasis: none;
}

Preferring emphasis marks over ruby

Some other editors prefer to hide ruby when they conflict with emphasis marks. In HTML, this can be done with the following pattern:

css

em {
  text-emphasis: dot; /* Set text-emphasis for <em> elements */
}

em rt {
  display: none; /* Hide ruby inside <em> elements */
}

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3 # text-emphasis-position-property

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

Language	Preferred position		Illustration
Language	Horizontal	Vertical	Illustration
Japanese	over	right
Korean
Mongolian
Chinese	under	right