text-emphasis

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 CSS property applies emphasis marks to text (except spaces and control characters). It is a shorthand for text-emphasis-style and text-emphasis-color.

Try it

text-emphasis: none;

text-emphasis: filled red;

text-emphasis: "x";

text-emphasis: filled double-circle #ffb703;

<section id="default-example">
  <p>
    I'd far rather be
    <span class="transition-all" id="example-element">happy than right</span>
    any day.
  </p>
</section>

p {
  font: 1.5em sans-serif;
}

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 descendants.

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.

Note: 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, use the property text-emphasis-position.

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

Syntax

css

/* Initial value */
text-emphasis: none; /* No emphasis marks */

/* <string> value */
text-emphasis: "x";
text-emphasis: "点";
text-emphasis: "\25B2";
text-emphasis: "*" #555555;
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 #555555;

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

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 definition

Initial value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-emphasis-style`: `none` `text-emphasis-color`: `currentcolor`
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	yes
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

Formal syntax

text-emphasis = 
  <'text-emphasis-style'>  ||
  <'text-emphasis-color'>  

<text-emphasis-style> = 
  none                                                |
  [ [ filled | open ] || [ dot | circle | double-circle | triangle | sesame ] ]  |
  <string>                                            

<text-emphasis-color> = 
  <color>

Examples

A heading with emphasis shape and color

This example draws a heading with triangles used to emphasize each character.

CSS

css

h2 {
  text-emphasis: triangle #dd5555;
}

HTML

html

<h2>This is important!</h2>

Result

Specifications

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

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Oct 30, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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