border-image

Summary

The border-image CSS property allows drawing an image on the borders of elements. This makes drawing complex looking widgets much simpler than it has been and removes the need for nine boxes in some cases. The border-image is used instead of the border styles given by the border-style properties.

It is important to note that if the computed value of border-image-source, which can be set either by border-image-source or the shorthand border-image, is none, or if the image cannot be displayed, the border styles will be used.

Syntax

/* image-source | height | width | repeat */
border-image: url("/images/border.png") 30 30 repeat;
border-image: url("/images/border.png") 30 30 stretch;

Values

See the respective properties for the different values.

Formal syntax

<'border-image-source'> || <'border-image-slice'> [ / <'border-image-width'> | / <'border-image-width'>? / <'border-image-outset'> ]? || <'border-image-repeat'>

Examples

Bitmap repeated (repeat)

The image is sliced and simply tiled to fill the border area.

  <div id="repeat">The image is tiled (repeated) to fill the area.</div>

#repeat { 
  border: 15px solid transparent;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  -moz-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 repeat; /* Old Firefox */
  -webkit-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 repeat; /* Safari */
  -o-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 repeat; /* Opera */
  border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 repeat;
}

Live Sample:

Bitmap repeated (round)

The round option is a variation on the repeat option that distributes the tiles in such a way that the ends nicely connect.

  <div id="round">The image is tiled (repeated) to fill the area.</div>

#round { 
  border: 15px solid transparent;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  -moz-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 round; /* Old Firefox */
  -webkit-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 round; /* Safari */
  -o-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 round; /* Opera */
  border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 round;
}

Live Sample:

Bitmap stretched

The 'stretch' option stretches the images to fill the border area.

  <div id="stretch">The image is stretched to fill the area.</div>

#stretch { 
  border: 15px solid transparent;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  -moz-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 stretch; /* Old Firefox */
  -webkit-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 stretch; /* Safari */
  -o-border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 stretch; /* Opera */
  border-image:url("/files/4127/border.png") 30 30 stretch;
}

Live Sample:

Specifications

Browser compatibility

• [1] An earlier version of the specification was implemented, prefixed, in Gecko versions prior to 15.
• [2] For Opera, the prefixed property was added after the non-prefixed.