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text-orientation

The text-orientation CSS property defines the orientation of the text characters in a line. This property only has an effect in vertical mode, that is, when writing-mode is not horizontal-tb. It is useful for controlling the display of languages that use vertical script, and also for making vertical table headers.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
text-orientation: mixed;
text-orientation: upright;
text-orientation: sideways-right;
text-orientation: sideways;
text-orientation: use-glyph-orientation;

/* Global values */
text-orientation: inherit;
text-orientation: initial;
text-orientation: unset;

The text-orientation property is specified as a single keyword from the list below.

Values

mixed
Rotates the characters of horizontal scripts 90° clockwise. Lays out the characters of vertical scripts naturally. Default value.
upright
Lays out the characters of horizontal scripts naturally (upright), as well as the glyphs for vertical scripts. Note that this keyword causes all characters to be considered as left-to-right: the used value of direction is forced to be ltr.
sideways
Causes characters to be laid out as they would be horizontally, but with the whole line rotated 90° clockwise.
sideways-right
An alias to sideways that is kept for compatibility purposes.
use-glyph-orientation
On SVG elements, this keyword leads to use the value of the deprecated SVG properties glyph-orientation-vertical and glyph-orientation-horizontal.

Formal syntax

mixed | upright | sideways

Examples

HTML

<p>Lorem ipsum dolet semper quisquam.</p>

CSS

p {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  text-orientation: upright;
}

Result

Specification

Specification Status Comment
CSS Writing Modes Module Level 3
The definition of 'text-orientation' in that specification.
Candidate Recommendation Initial definition.
Initial value mixed
Applies to all elements, except table row groups, rows, column groups, and columns
Inherited yes
Media visual
Computed value as specified
Animation type discrete
Canonical order the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

Desktop
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support 48
48
Yes
Prefixed
Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
? 41
41
38 — 51
Disabled
Disabled From version 38 until version 51 (exclusive): this feature is behind the layout.css.vertical-text.enabled preference (needs to be set to true). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.
No Yes
Prefixed
Yes
Prefixed
Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
No
sideways No ? 44
44
sideways-right has become an alias of sideways.
No No No
Mobile
Android webview Chrome for Android Edge Mobile Firefox for Android Opera for Android iOS Safari Samsung Internet
Basic support 48
48
Yes
Prefixed
Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
48
48
Yes
Prefixed
Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
? 41
41
38 — 51
Disabled
Disabled From version 38 until version 51 (exclusive): this feature is behind the layout.css.vertical-text.enabled preference (needs to be set to true). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.
No No 5.0
5.0
Yes
Prefixed
Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
sideways No No ? 44
44
sideways-right has become an alias of sideways.
No No No

See also

© 2005–2018 Mozilla Developer Network and individual contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-orientation