unicode-bidi

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.

The unicode-bidi CSS property, together with the direction property, determines how bidirectional text in a document is handled. For example, if a block of content contains both left-to-right and right-to-left text, the user-agent uses a complex Unicode algorithm to decide how to display the text. The unicode-bidi property overrides this algorithm and allows the developer to control the text embedding.

Try it

The unicode-bidi and direction properties are the only properties that are not affected by the all shorthand.

Warning: This property is intended for Document Type Definition (DTD) designers. Web designers and similar authors should not override it.

Syntax

css

/* Keyword values */
unicode-bidi: normal;
unicode-bidi: embed;
unicode-bidi: isolate;
unicode-bidi: bidi-override;
unicode-bidi: isolate-override;
unicode-bidi: plaintext;

/* Global values */
unicode-bidi: inherit;
unicode-bidi: initial;
unicode-bidi: revert;
unicode-bidi: revert-layer;
unicode-bidi: unset;

Values

normal: The element does not offer an additional level of embedding with respect to the bidirectional algorithm. For inline elements, implicit reordering works across element boundaries.
embed: If the element is inline, this value opens an additional level of embedding with respect to the bidirectional algorithm. The direction of this embedding level is given by the direction property.
bidi-override: For inline elements this creates an override. For block container elements this creates an override for inline-level descendants not within another block container element. This means that inside the element, reordering is strictly in sequence according to the direction property; the implicit part of the bidirectional algorithm is ignored.
isolate: This keyword indicates that the element's container directionality should be calculated without considering the content of this element. The element is therefore isolated from its siblings. When applying its bidirectional-resolution algorithm, its container element treats it as one or several U+FFFC Object Replacement Character, i.e. like an image.
isolate-override: This keyword applies the isolation behavior of the isolate keyword to the surrounding content and the override behavior of the bidi-override keyword to the inner content.
plaintext: This keyword makes the elements directionality calculated without considering its parent bidirectional state or the value of the direction property. The directionality is calculated using the P2 and P3 rules of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm. This value allows the display of data that is already formatted using a tool following the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.

Formal definition

Initial value	`normal`
Applies to	all elements, though some values have no effect on non-inline elements
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	Not animatable

Formal syntax

unicode-bidi = 
  normal            |
  embed             |
  isolate           |
  bidi-override     |
  isolate-override  |
  plaintext

Examples

CSS

css

.bible-quote {
  direction: rtl;
  unicode-bidi: embed;
}

HTML

html

<div class="bible-quote">A line of text</div>
<div>Another line of text</div>

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Writing Modes Level 4 # unicode-bidi

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser