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:

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 valuedisc
Applies tolist items
Inheritedyes
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

<counter-style> | <string> | none
where 
<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

See also