::cue

Baseline Widely available *

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.

The ::cue CSS pseudo-element matches WebVTT cues within a selected element. This can be used to style captions and other cues in media with VTT tracks.

Try it

The properties are applied to the entire set of cues as if they were a single unit. The only exception is that background and its longhand properties apply to each cue individually, to avoid creating boxes and obscuring unexpectedly large areas of the media.

In the example above, the ::cue(u) selector selects all the <u> elements inside the cue text.

Syntax

css
::cue | ::cue(<selector>) {
  /* ... */
}

Permitted properties

Examples

Styling WebVTT cues as white-on-black

The following CSS sets the cue style so that the text is white and the background is a translucent black box.

css
::cue {
  color: #fff;
  background-color: rgb(0 0 0 / 60%);
}

Styling WebVTT internal node objects

Cue text can include internal node objects as the tags (similar to HTML elements) <c>, <i>, <b>, <u>, <ruby>, <rt>, <v>, and <lang>. The ::cue() selector can be used to apply styles to content inside these tags to customize how the WebVTT track is displayed. Consider the following cue text that uses the <u> tag to underline some text:

00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:02.999 line:80%
Tell me, is the <u>lord of the universe</u> in?

The following CSS rule customizes the text inside the <u> tag with a color and a text-decoration:

css
::cue(u) {
  color: red;
  text-decoration: wavy overline lime;
}

Specifications

Specification
WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format
# the-cue-pseudo-element

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
::cue
::cue(<selector>)

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
No support
No support
See implementation notes.

See also