list-style-type

The list-style-type CSS property sets the marker (such as a disc, character, or custom counter style) of a list item element.

The color of the marker will be the same as the computed color of the element it applies to.

Only a few elements (<li> and <summary>) have a default value of display: list-item. However, the list-style-type property may be applied to any element whose display value is set to list-item. Moreover, because this property is inherited, it can be set on a parent element (commonly <ol> or <ul>) to make it apply to all list items.

Syntax

/* Partial list of types */
list-style-type: disc;
list-style-type: circle;
list-style-type: square;
list-style-type: decimal;
list-style-type: georgian;
list-style-type: trad-chinese-informal;
list-style-type: kannada;

/* <string> value */
list-style-type: '-';

/* Identifier matching an @counter-style rule */
list-style-type: custom-counter-style;

/* Keyword value */
list-style-type: none;

/* Global values */
list-style-type: inherit;
list-style-type: initial;
list-style-type: revert;
list-style-type: unset;

The list-style-type property may be defined as any one of:

a <custom-ident> value
a symbols() value
a <string> value
the keyword none.

Note that:

Some types require a suitable font installed to display as expected.
The cjk-ideographic is identical to trad-chinese-informal; it exists for legacy reasons.

Values

<custom-ident>: A identifier matching the value of a @counter-style or one of the predefined styles:
symbols(): Defines an anonymous style of the list.
<string>: The specified string will be used as the item's marker.
none: No item marker is shown.
disc: A filled circle (default value).
circle: A hollow circle.
square: A filled square.
decimal: Decimal numbers, beginning with 1.
cjk-decimal: Han decimal numbers.
decimal-leading-zero: Decimal numbers, padded by initial zeros.
lower-roman: Lowercase roman numerals.
upper-roman: Uppercase roman numerals.
lower-greek: Lowercase classical Greek.
lower-alpha, lower-latin: Lowercase ASCII letters.
upper-alpha, upper-latin: Uppercase ASCII letters.
arabic-indic, -moz-arabic-indic: Arabic-Indic numbers.
armenian: Traditional Armenian numbering.
bengali, -moz-bengali: Bengali numbering.
cambodian/khmer: Cambodian/Khmer numbering.
cjk-earthly-branch, -moz-cjk-earthly-branch: Han "Earthly Branch" ordinals.
cjk-heavenly-stem, -moz-cjk-heavenly-stem: Han "Heavenly Stem" ordinals.
cjk-ideographic: Identical to trad-chinese-informal.
devanagari, -moz-devanagari: Devanagari numbering.
ethiopic-numeric: Ethiopic numbering.
georgian: Traditional Georgian numbering.
gujarati, -moz-gujarati: Gujarati numbering.
gurmukhi, -moz-gurmukhi: Gurmukhi numbering.
hebrew: Traditional Hebrew numbering
hiragana: Dictionary-order hiragana lettering.
hiragana-iroha: Iroha-order hiragana lettering
japanese-formal: Japanese formal numbering to be used in legal or financial documents. The kanjis are designed so that they can't be modified to look like another correct one.
japanese-informal: Japanese informal numbering.
kannada, -moz-kannada: Kannada numbering.
katakana: Dictionary-order katakana lettering
katakana-iroha: Iroha-order katakana lettering
korean-hangul-formal: Korean hangul numbering.
korean-hanja-formal: Formal Korean Han numbering.
korean-hanja-informal: Korean hanja numbering.
lao, -moz-lao: Laotian numbering.
lower-armenian *: Lowercase Armenian numbering.
malayalam, -moz-malayalam: Malayalam numbering.
mongolian: Mongolian numbering.
myanmar, -moz-myanmar: Myanmar (Burmese) numbering.
oriya, -moz-oriya: Oriya numbering.
persian , -moz-persian: Persian numbering
simp-chinese-formal: Simplified Chinese formal numbering.
simp-chinese-informal: Simplified Chinese informal numbering.
tamil , -moz-tamil: Tamil numbering.
telugu, -moz-telugu: Telugu numbering.
thai, -moz-thai: Thai numbering.
tibetan *: Tibetan numbering.
trad-chinese-formal: Traditional Chinese formal numbering.
trad-chinese-informal: Traditional Chinese informal numbering.
upper-armenian *: Traditional uppercase Armenian numbering.
disclosure-open: Symbol indicating that a disclosure widget such as <details> is opened.
disclosure-closed: Symbol indicating that a disclosure widget, like <details> is closed.

Non-standard extensions

A few more predefined types are provided by Mozilla (Firefox), Blink (Chrome and Opera) and WebKit (Safari) to support list types in other languages. See the compatibility table to check which browsers supports which extension.

-moz-ethiopic-halehame
-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am
ethiopic-halehame-ti-er, -moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
ethiopic-halehame-ti-et, -moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
hangul, -moz-hangul
hangul-consonant, -moz-hangul-consonant
urdu, -moz-urdu

Accessibility concerns

The VoiceOver screen reader has an issue where unordered lists with a list-style-type value of none applied to them will not be announced as a list. To address this, add a zero-width space as pseudo content before each list item to ensure the list is announced properly. This ensures the design is unaffected by the bug fix and that list items are not improperly described.

ul {
  list-style: none;
}

ul li::before {
  content: "\200B";
}

Formal definition

Initial value	`disc`
Applies to	list items
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

<counter-style> | <string> | nonewhere 
<counter-style> = <counter-style-name> | symbols()
where 
<counter-style-name> = <custom-ident>

Examples

Setting list item markers

HTML

List 1
<ol class="normal">
  <li>Hello</li>
  <li>World</li>
  <li>What's up?</li>
</ol>

List 2
<ol class="shortcut">
  <li>Looks</li>
  <li>Like</li>
  <li>The</li>
  <li>Same</li>
</ol>

CSS

ol.normal {
  list-style-type: upper-alpha;
}

/* or use the shortcut "list-style": */
ol.shortcut {
  list-style: upper-alpha;
}

Result

All list style types

HTML

<ol>
  <li>Apollo</li>
  <li>Hubble</li>
  <li>Chandra</li>
  <li>Cassini-Huygens</li>
  <li>Spitzer</li>
</ol>

<h2>Choose a list style type:</h2>

<div class="container">

  <label for="disc">
    <input type="radio" id="disc" name="type" value="disc">disc
  </label>

  <label for="circle">
    <input type="radio" id="circle" name="type" value="circle">circle
  </label>

  <label for="square">
    <input type="radio" id="square" name="type" value="square">square
  </label>

  <label for="decimal">
    <input type="radio" id="decimal" name="type" value="decimal">decimal
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-decimal">
    <input type="radio" id="cjk-decimal" name="type" value="cjk-decimal">cjk-decimal
  </label>

  <label for="decimal-leading-zero">
    <input type="radio" id="decimal-leading-zero" name="type" value="decimal-leading-zero">decimal-leading-zero
  </label>

  <label for="lower-roman">
    <input type="radio" id="lower-roman" name="type" value="lower-roman">lower-roman
  </label>

  <label for="upper-roman">
    <input type="radio" id="upper-roman" name="type" value="upper-roman">upper-roman
  </label>

  <label for="lower-greek">
    <input type="radio" id="lower-greek" name="type" value="lower-greek">lower-greek
  </label>

  <label for="lower-alpha">
    <input type="radio" id="lower-alpha" name="type" value="lower-alpha">lower-alpha, lower-latin
  </label>

  <label for="upper-alpha">
    <input type="radio" id="upper-alpha" name="type" value="upper-alpha">upper-alpha, upper-latin
  </label>

  <label for="arabic-indic">
    <input type="radio" id="arabic-indic" name="type" value="arabic-indic">arabic-indic
  </label>

  <label for="armenian">
    <input type="radio" id="armenian" name="type" value="armenian">armenian
  </label>

  <label for="bengali">
    <input type="radio" id="bengali" name="type" value="bengali">bengali
  </label>

  <label for="cambodian">
    <input type="radio" id="cambodian" name="type" value="cambodian">cambodian
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-earthly-branch">
    <input type="radio" id="cjk-earthly-branch" name="type" value="cjk-earthly-branch">cjk-earthly-branch
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-heavenly-stem">
    <input type="radio" id="cjk-heavenly-stem" name="type" value="cjk-heavenly-stem">cjk-heavenly-stem
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-ideographic">
    <input type="radio" id="cjk-ideographic" name="type" value="cjk-ideographic">cjk-ideographic
  </label>

  <label for="devanagari">
    <input type="radio" id="devanagari" name="type" value="devanagari">devanagari
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-numeric">
    <input type="radio" id="ethiopic-numeric" name="type" value="ethiopic-numeric">ethiopic-numeric
  </label>

  <label for="georgian">
    <input type="radio" id="georgian" name="type" value="georgian">georgian
  </label>

  <label for="gujarati">
    <input type="radio" id="gujarati" name="type" value="gujarati">gujarati
  </label>

  <label for="gurmukhi">
    <input type="radio" id="gurmukhi" name="type" value="gurmukhi">gurmukhi
  </label>

  <label for="hebrew">
    <input type="radio" id="hebrew" name="type" value="hebrew">hebrew
  </label>

  <label for="hiragana">
    <input type="radio" id="hiragana" name="type" value="hiragana">hiragana
  </label>

  <label for="hiragana-iroha">
    <input type="radio" id="hiragana-iroha" name="type" value="hiragana-iroha">hiragana-iroha
  </label>

  <label for="japanese-formal">
    <input type="radio" id="japanese-formal" name="type" value="japanese-formal">japanese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="japanese-informal">
    <input type="radio" id="japanese-informal" name="type" value="japanese-informal">japanese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="kannada">
    <input type="radio" id="kannada" name="type" value="kannada">kannada
  </label>

  <label for="katakana">
    <input type="radio" id="katakana" name="type" value="katakana">katakana
  </label>

  <label for="katakana-iroha">
    <input type="radio" id="katakana-iroha" name="type" value="katakana-iroha">katakana-iroha
  </label>

  <label for="khmer">
    <input type="radio" id="khmer" name="type" value="khmer">khmer
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hangul-formal">
    <input type="radio" id="korean-hangul-formal" name="type" value="korean-hangul-formal">korean-hangul-formal
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hanja-formal">
    <input type="radio" id="korean-hanja-formal" name="type" value="korean-hanja-formal">korean-hanja-formal
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hanja-informal">
    <input type="radio" id="korean-hanja-informal" name="type" value="korean-hanja-informal">korean-hanja-informal
  </label>

  <label for="lao">
    <input type="radio" id="lao" name="type" value="lao">lao
  </label>

  <label for="lower-armenian">
    <input type="radio" id="lower-armenian" name="type" value="lower-armenian">lower-armenian
  </label>

  <label for="malayalam">
    <input type="radio" id="malayalam" name="type" value="malayalam">malayalam
  </label>

  <label for="mongolian">
    <input type="radio" id="mongolian" name="type" value="mongolian">mongolian
  </label>

  <label for="myanmar">
    <input type="radio" id="myanmar" name="type" value="myanmar">myanmar
  </label>

  <label for="oriya">
    <input type="radio" id="oriya" name="type" value="oriya">oriya
  </label>

  <label for="persian">
    <input type="radio" id="persian" name="type" value="persian">persian
  </label>

  <label for="simp-chinese-formal">
    <input type="radio" id="simp-chinese-formal" name="type" value="simp-chinese-formal">simp-chinese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="simp-chinese-informal">
    <input type="radio" id="simp-chinese-informal" name="type" value="simp-chinese-informal">simp-chinese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="tamil">
    <input type="radio" id="tamil" name="type" value="tamil">tamil
  </label>

  <label for="telegu">
    <input type="radio" id="telegu" name="type" value="telegu">telegu
  </label>

  <label for="thai">
    <input type="radio" id="thai" name="type" value="thai">thai
  </label>

  <label for="tibetan">
    <input type="radio" id="tibetan" name="type" value="tibetan">tibetan
  </label>

  <label for="trad-chinese-formal">
    <input type="radio" id="trad-chinese-formal" name="type" value="trad-chinese-formal">trad-chinese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="trad-chinese-informal">
    <input type="radio" id="trad-chinese-informal" name="type" value="trad-chinese-informal">trad-chinese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="upper-armenian">
    <input type="radio" id="upper-armenian" name="type" value="upper-armenian">upper-armenian
  </label>

  <label for="disclosure-open">
    <input type="radio" id="disclosure-open" name="type" value="disclosure-open">disclosure-open
  </label>

  <label for="disclosure-closed">
    <input type="radio" id="disclosure-closed" name="type" value="disclosure-closed">disclosure-closed
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-ethiopic-halehame">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-ethiopic-halehame" name="type" value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame">-moz-ethiopic-halehame
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am" name="type" value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am">-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">
    <input type="radio" id="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er" name="type" value="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">
    <input type="radio" id="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et" name="type" value="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
  </label>

  <label for="hangul">
    <input type="radio" id="hangul" name="type" value="hangul">hangul
  </label>

  <label for="hangul-consonant">
    <input type="radio" id="hangul-consonant" name="type" value="hangul-consonant">hangul-consonant
  </label>

  <label for="urdu">
    <input type="radio" id="urdu" name="type" value="urdu">urdu
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er" name="type" value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et" name="type" value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-hangul">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-hangul" name="type" value="-moz-hangul">-moz-hangul
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-hangul-consonant">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-hangul-consonant" name="type" value="-moz-hangul-consonant">-moz-hangul-consonant
  </label>

  <label for="-moz-urdu">
    <input type="radio" id="-moz-urdu" name="type" value="-moz-urdu">-moz-urdu
  </label>

</div>

CSS

ol {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}

.container {
  column-count: 3;
}

label {
  display: block;
}

input {
  margin: .4rem;
}

JavaScript

const container = document.querySelector(".container");
container.addEventListener("change", event => {
  const list = document.querySelector("ol");
  list.setAttribute("style", `list-style-type: ${event.target.value}`);
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Lists Module Level 3 (CSS Lists 3) # text-markers
CSS Counter Styles Level 3 (CSS Counter Styles 3) # extending-css2

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser