CSS Text Level 3: W3C Working Draft 15 February 2011

file:///C:/Users/Joseph/Desktop/CSS%20Text%20Level%203.
htm
CSS Text Level 3
W3C Working Draft 15 February 2011

This version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-css3-text-20110215/
Latest version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text
Previous version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-css3-text-20101005/
Editors:
Elika J. Etemad (Invited Expert)
Koji Ishii (Antenna House)
Shinyu Murakami (Antenna House)
Copyright © 2011 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark and
document use rules apply.
Abstract
This CSS3 module defines properties for text manipulation and specifies their processing model. It
covers line breaking, justification and alignment, white space handling, text decoration and text
transformation.
Status of This Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may
supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical
report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft
document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is
inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This CSS module has been produced as a combined effort of the W3C Internationalization Activity,
and the Style Activity and is maintained by the CSS Working Group. It also includes contributions
made by participants in the XSL Working Group (members only).
This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy.
W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the
group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual
knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the
information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
Feedback on this draft should be posted to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org
(see instructions) with [css3-text] in the subject line. You are strongly encouraged to complain if
you see something stupid in this draft. The editors will do their best to respond to all feedback.
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If you have implemented properties from the May 2003 CSS3 Text CR please let us know so we
can take that into account as we redraft the spec. You can post to www-style (public), post to the CSS
WG mailing list (Member-restricted), or email fantasai directly (personal).
The following features are at risk and may be cut from the spec during its CR period:
z the ‘text-outline’ property

z the ‘unrestricted’ value of ‘text-wrap’
z the ‘hanging-punctuation’ property
z the ‘text-trim’ property
z audit draft and add more here
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Script Groups
2. Conformance
2.1. Partial and Experimental Implementations
3. Transforming Text
3.1. Transforming Text: the ‘text-transform’ property
4. White Space Processing
4.1. White Space Collapsing: the ‘white-space-collapsing’ property
4.2. The White Space Processing Rules
4.2.1. Example of bidirectionality with white space collapsing
4.2.2. Line Break Transformation Rules
4.2.3. Informative Summary of White Space Collapsing Effects
4.3. White Space and Text Wrapping Shorthand: the ‘white-space’ property
5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries
5.1. Line Breaking Strictness: the ‘line-break’ property
5.2. Word Breaking Rules: the ‘word-break’ property
6. Hyphenation
6.1. Hyphenation Control: the ‘hyphens’ property
6.2. Hyphens: the ‘hyphenate-character’ property
6.3. Hyphenation Character Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-before’ and ‘hyphenate-limit-after’
properties
6.4. Hyphenation Line Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-lines’ and ‘hyphenate-limit-last’
properties
6.5. Hyphenation Resources
6.5.1. The ‘@hyphenate-resource’ rule
6.5.2. The ‘hyphenate-resource’ property
7. Text Wrapping
7.1. Text Wrap Settings: the ‘text-wrap’ property
7.1.1. Example of using ‘text-wrap: avoid’ in presenting a footer
7.2. Emergency Wrapping: the ‘word-wrap’ property
8. Alignment and Justification
8.1. Text Alignment: the ‘text-align’ property
8.1.1. Details on Character-based Alignment in a Table Column
8.2. First Line Alignment: the ‘text-align-first’ property
8.3. Last Line Alignment: the ‘text-align-last’ property
8.4. Justification Method: the ‘text-justify’ property
9. Spacing
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9.1. Word Spacing: the ‘word-spacing’ property

9.2. Tracking: the ‘letter-spacing’ property
9.3. Fullwidth Kerning: the ‘text-trim’ property
9.4. Adding space: the ‘text-autospace’ property
10. Edge Effects
10.1. First Line Indentation: the ‘text-indent’ property
10.2. Hanging Punctuation: the ‘hanging-punctuation’ property
11. Text Decoration
11.1. Line Decoration: Underline, Overline, and Strike-Through
11.1.1. Text Decoration Lines: the ‘text-decoration-line’ property
11.1.2. Text Decoration Color: the ‘text-decoration-color’ property
11.1.3. Text Decoration Style: the ‘text-decoration-style’ property
11.1.4. Text Decoration Shorthand: the ‘text-decoration’ property
11.1.5. Text Decoration Line Continuity: the ‘text-decoration-skip’ property
11.1.6. Text Underline Position: the ‘text-underline-position’ property
11.2. Emphasis Marks
11.2.1. Emphasis Mark Style: the ‘text-emphasis-style’ property
11.2.2. Emphasis Mark Color: the ‘text-emphasis-color’ property
11.2.3. Emphasis Mark Shorthand: the ‘text-emphasis’ property
11.2.4. Emphasis Mark Position: the ‘text-emphasis-position’ property
11.3. Text Shadows: the ‘text-shadow’ property
11.4. Text Outlines: the ‘text-outline’ property
Changes
Changes from the October 2010 CSS3 Text WD
Acknowledgements
Appendix A: References
Normative references
Informative references
Appendix B: Property index
Appendix C: Default UA Stylesheet
Index
1. Introduction
[document here]
1.1. Script Groups
Typographic behavior varies somewhat by language, but varies drastically by writing system. For
convenience, CSS3 Text defines the following script groups, which combine typographically-similar
scripts together.
block scripts
CJK (including Hangul and half-width kana) and by extension all "wide" characters. (See [UAX11])
clustered scripts
South-East Asian scripts that have discrete units but do not use space between words (such as
Thai, Lao, Khmer, Myanmar). This category also includes the Tibetan script.
discrete scripts
Scripts that use spaces or visible word-separating punctuation between words and have discrete,
unconnected (in print) units within words, such as Latin, Greek, Ethiopic, Cyrillic, Hebrew.
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cursive scripts
Arabic and similar cursive scripts.
connected scripts
Devanagari, Ogham, and other scripts that use spaces between words and baseline connectors
within words. By extension this group also includes Gurmukhi, Tamil and any other Indic scripts
whose typographic behavior is similar to Devanagari.
Provide an appendix using Unicode script names.
These definitions are used primarily in describing line-breaking and justification behavior.
2. Conformance
Conformance requirements are expressed with a combination of descriptive assertions and RFC 2119
terminology. The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”,
“SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in the normative parts of
this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. However, for readability, these words
do not appear in all uppercase letters in this specification. All of the text of this specification is
normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes. [RFC2119]
Examples in this specification are introduced with the words “for example” or are set apart from the
normative text with class="example", like this:
This is an example of an informative example.
Informative notes begin with the word “Note” and are set apart from the normative text with
class="note", like this:
Note, this is an informative note.
Conformance to CSS Text Level 3 is defined for three classes:
style sheet
A CSS style sheet.
renderer
A UA that interprets the semantics of a style sheet and renders documents that use them.
authoring tool
A UA that writes a style sheet.
A style sheet is conformant to CSS Text Level 3 if all of its declarations that use properties defined in
this module have values that are valid according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual
grammars of each property as given in this module.
A renderer is conformant to CSS Text Level 3 if, in addition to interpreting the style sheet as defined by
the appropriate specifications, it supports all the properties defined by CSS Text Level 3 by parsing
them correctly and rendering the document accordingly. However the inability of a UA to correctly
render a document due to limitations of the device does not make the UA non-conformant. (For
example, a UA is not required to render color on a monochrome monitor.)
An authoring tool is conformant to CSS Text Level 3 if it writes syntactically correct style sheets,
according to the generic CSS grammar and the individual grammars of each property in this module.
2.1. Partial and Experimental Implementations
UAs must treat as invalid any properties or values they do not support. Experimental implementations
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of a feature should support only a vendor-prefixed syntax for the property/value.
3. Transforming Text
3.1. Transforming Text: the ‘text-transform’ property
Name: text-transform
Value: none | [ [ capitalize | uppercase | lowercase ] || fullwidth || large-kana ]
Initial: none
Applies all elements
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: as specified
This property transforms text for the styling purpose. Values have the following meanings:
none
No effects.
capitalize
Puts all words in titlecase.
uppercase
Puts all characters in uppercase.
lowercase
Puts all characters in lowercase.
fullwidth
Puts all characters in fullwidth form. If the character does not have corresponding fullwidth form, it
is left as is. This value is typically used to typeset Latin characters and digits like ideographic
characters.
large-kana
Converts all small Kana characters to normal Kana. This value is typically used for ruby annotation
text, where all small Kana should be drawn as large Kana.
Authors using this for ruby text may also want to use ‘font-variant: ruby’. [CSS3FONT]
Although limited, the case mapping process has some language dependencies. Some well known
examples are Turkish and Greek. If the content language is known then any such language-specific
rules must be used.
The case mapping rules for the character repertoire specified by the Unicode Standard can be found
on the Unicode Consortium Web site. [UNICODE] Only characters belonging to bicameral scripts are
affected.
The definition of fullwidth and halfwidth forms can be found on the Unicode consortium web site at
[UAX11].
The following example converts the ASCII characters in abbreviations in Japanese to their fullwidth
variants so that they lay out and line break like ideographs:
abbr:lang(ja) { text-transform: fullwidth; }
4. White Space Processing
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The source text of a document often contains formatting that is not relevant to the final rendering: for
example, breaking the source into segments (lines) for ease of editing or adding white space
characters such as tabs and spaces to indent the source code. CSS white space processing allows the
author to control interpretation of such formatting: to preserve or collapse it away when rendering the
document.
Segments in the document source can be separated by a carriage return (U+000D), a linefeed
(U+000A) or both (U+000D U+000A), or by some other mechanism that identifies the beginning and
end of document segments, such as the SGML RECORD-START and RECORD-END tokens. If no
segmentation rules are specified for the document language, each line feed (U+000A), carriage return
(U+000D) and CRLF sequence (U+000D U+000A) in the text is considered a segment break. (This
default rule also applies to generated content.) In CSS, each such segment break is treated as a single
line feed character (U+000A).
White space processing in CSS interprets white space characters for rendering: it has no effect on the
underlying document data. In the context of CSS, the document white space set is defined to be any
space characters (Unicode value U+0020), tab characters (U+0009), and line feeds (U+000A).
Note that the document parser may have not only normalized segment breaks, but also collapsed
other space characters or otherwise processed white space according to markup rules. Because CSS
processing occurs after the parsing stage, it is not possible to restore these characters for styling.
Therefore, some of the behavior specified below can be affected by these limitations and may be user
agent dependent.
Control characters other than U+0009 (tab), U+000A (line feed), U+0020 (space), and U+202x (bidi
formatting characters) are treated as characters to render in the same way as any normal character.
Copied from CSS2.1 but this has got to be wrong.
4.1. White Space Collapsing: the ‘white-space-collapsing’ property
This section is still under discussion and may change in future drafts.
Name: white-space-collapsing
Value: collapse | discard | [ [preserve | preserve-breaks] && trim-inner ]
Initial: collapse
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: specified value
Rename to white-space-trim or white-space-adjust? white-space-collapsing has an ‘ing’ and is

confusing with XSL
This property declares whether and how white space inside the element is collapsed. Values have the
following meanings, which must be interpreted according to the white space processing rules:
collapse
This value directs user agents to collapse sequences of white space into a single character (or in
some cases, no character).
preserve
This value prevents user agents from collapsing sequences of white space. Segment breaks are
preserved as forced line breaks.
preserve-breaks
This value collapses white space as for ‘collapse’, but preserves segment breaks as forced line
breaks.
discard
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This value directs user agents to "discard" all white space in the element.
trim-inner
This value directs UAs to discard all whitespace at the beginning of a block up to and including the
last line break before the first non-white-space character in the block as well as to discard all white
space at the end of a block starting with the first line break after the last non-white-space
character in the block.
4.2. The White Space Processing Rules
For each inline (including anonymous inlines), white space characters are handled as follows, ignoring
bidi formatting characters as if they were not there:
z If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is set to ‘collapse’ or ‘preserve-breaks’, white space characters are

considered collapsible and are processed by performing the following steps:
1. All spaces and tabs immediately following a line feed character are removed. (This has the
effect of discarding all white space at the start of a line but preserving a trailing space if one
exists at the end.)
2. If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is not ‘preserve-breaks’, line feed characters are transformed for
rendering according to the line break transformation rules.
3. Every tab (U+0009) is converted to a space (U+0020)
4. Any space (U+0020) following another collapsible space (U+0020)—even a space before the
inline—is removed. However, if removing this space would eliminate a line breaking
opportunity in the text, that opportunity is still considered to exist.
z If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is set to ‘preserve’, any sequence of spaces (U+0020) unbroken by

an element boundary is treated as a sequence of non-breaking spaces. However, a line breaking
opportunity exists at the end of the sequence.
z If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is set to ‘discard’, the first white space character in every white space
sequence is converted to a zero width non-joiner (U+200C) and the rest of the sequence is
removed.
Then, the entire block is rendered. Inlines are laid out, taking bidi reordering into account, and
wrapping as specified by the ‘text-wrap’ property.
As each line is laid out,
1. A sequence of collapsible spaces (U+0020) at the beginning of a line is removed.

2. Each tab (U+0009) is rendered as a horizontal shift that lines up the start edge of the next glyph
with the next tab stop. Tab stops occur at points that are multiples of 8 times the width of a space
(U+0020) rendered in the block's font from the block's starting content edge.
3. A sequence of collapsible spaces (U+0020) at the end of a line is removed.
4. If spaces (U+0020) or tabs (U+0009) at the end of a line are non-collapsible but have ‘text-wrap’
set to ‘normal’ or ‘avoid’ the UA may visually collapse them.
4.2.1. Example of bidirectionality with white space collapsing
Consider the following markup fragment, taking special note of spaces (with varied backgrounds
and borders for emphasis and identification):
<ltr>A <rtl> B </rtl> C</ltr>
where the <ltr> element represents a left-to-right embedding and the <rtl> element represents a
right-to-left embedding. If the ‘white-space-collapsing’ property is set to ‘collapse’, the above
processing model would result in the following:
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z The space before the B ( ) would collapse with the space after the A ( ).
z The space before the C ( ) would collapse with the space after the B ( ).
This would leave two spaces, one after the A in the left-to-right embedding level, and one after the B
in the right-to-left embedding level. This is then ordered according to the Unicode bidirectional
algorithm, with the end result being:
A BC
Note that there are two spaces between A and B, and none between B and C. This is best avoided
by putting spaces outside the element instead of just inside the opening and closing tags and, where
practical, by relying on implicit bidirectionality instead of explicit embedding levels.
4.2.2. Line Break Transformation Rules
When line feeds are collapsible, they are either transformed into a space (U+0020) or removed
depending on the script context before and after the line break.
The script context is determined by the Unicode-given script value [UAX24] of the first character that
side of the line feed. However, characters such as punctuation that belong to the COMMON and
INHERITED scripts are ignored in this check; the next character is examined instead. The UA must not
examine characters outside the block and may limit its examination to as few as four characters on
each side of the line feed. If the check fails to find an acceptable script value (i.e. it has hit the check
limits), then the script context is neutral.
Note that the white space processing rules have already removed any tabs and spaces after the line
feed before these checks take place.
z If the character immediately before or immediately after the line feed is the zero width space
character (U+200B), then the line feed is removed.
z Otherwise, if the script context on one side of the line feed is Hangul, then the line feed is
converted to a space (U+0020).
z Otherwise, if the East Asian Width property [UAX11] of both the character before and after the line
feed is F, W, or H (not A), then the line feed is removed.
z Otherwise, if ‘text-autospace’ property is set to add extra spaces for the combination of the
character before the line feed and after, then the line break is removed.
z Otherwise, the line feed is converted to a space (U+0020).
Comments on how well this would work in practice would be very much appreciated, particularly from
people who work with Thai and similar scripts.
4.2.3. Informative Summary of White Space Collapsing Effects
z Consecutive white space collapses into a single space.

z A sequence of line breaks and other white space between two ideographic characters collapses
into nothing unless there is a space before the first line break in the sequence.
z A zero width space immediately before or anywhere after a line break causes the entire sequence
of white space beginning with the line break to collapse into a zero width space.
4.3. White Space and Text Wrapping Shorthand: the ‘white-space’ property
Name: white-space
Value: normal | pre | nowrap | pre-wrap | pre-line
Initial: not defined for shorthand properties
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
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Media: visual
Computed value: see individual properties
The ‘white-space’ property is a shorthand for the ‘white-space-collapsing’ and ‘text-wrap’properties.

Not all combinations are represented. Values have the following meanings:
normal
Sets ‘white-space-collapsing’ to ‘collapse’ and ‘text-wrap’ to ‘normal’
pre
Sets ‘white-space-collapsing’ to ‘preserve’ and ‘text-wrap’ to ‘none’
nowrap
Sets ‘white-space-collapsing’ to ‘collapse’ and ‘text-wrap’ to ‘none’
pre-wrap
Sets ‘white-space-collapsing’ to ‘preserve’ and ‘text-wrap’ to ‘normal’
pre-line
Sets ‘white-space-collapsing’ to ‘preserve-breaks’ and ‘text-wrap’ to ‘normal’
The following informative table summarizes the behavior of various ‘white-space’ values:
New Lines Spaces and Tabs Text Wrapping

normal Collapse Collapse Wrap
pre Preserve Preserve No wrap
nowrap Collapse Collapse No wrap
pre-wrap Preserve Preserve Wrap
pre-line Preserve Collapse Wrap
5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries

In most writing systems, in the absence of hyphenation a line break occurs only at word boundaries.
Many writing systems use spaces or punctuation to explicitly separate words, and line break
opportunities can be identified by these characters. Scripts such as Thai, Lao, and Khmer, however, do
not use spaces or punctuation to separate words. Although the zero width space (U+200B) can be
used as an explicit word delimiter in these scripts, this practice is not common. As a result, a lexical
resource is needed to correctly identify break points in such texts.
In several other writing systems, (including Chinese, Japanese, Yi, and sometimes also Korean) a line
break opportunity is based on character boundaries, not word boundaries. In these systems a line can
break anywhere except between certain character combinations. Additionally the level of strictness in
these restrictions can vary with the typesetting style.
CSS does not fully define where line breaking opportunities occur, however some controls are
provided to distinguish common variations.
Further information on line breaking conventions can be found in [JIS4051] for Japanese, [ZHMARK]
for Chinese, and [?] for Korean, and in [UAX14] for all scripts in Unicode.
Any guidance for appropriate references here would be much appreciated.
Information on line-breaking in the absence of dictionaries: for Thai
Floated and absolutely-positioned elements do not introduce a line breaking opportunity. The line
breaking behavior of a replaced element is equivalent to that of a Latin character.
It is not clear whether this section handles Southeast Asian scripts well. Additionally, some guidance
should be provided on how to break or not break Southeast Asian in the absence of a dictionary.
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5.1. Line Breaking Strictness: the ‘line-break’ property
Name: line-break
Value: auto | loose | normal | strict
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the strictness of line-breaking rules applied within an element: particularly how
line-breaking interacts with punctuation. Values have the following meanings:
auto
The UA determines the set of line-breaking restrictions to use, and it may vary the restrictions
based on the length of the line; e.g., use a less restrictive set of line-break rules for short lines.
loose
Breaks text using the least restrictive set of line-breaking rules. Typically used for short lines, such
as in newspapers.
normal
Breaks text using the most common set of line-breaking rules.
strict
Breaks text using the most stringent set of line-breaking rules.
CSS distinguishes between three levels of strictness in the rules for implicit line breaking. The precise
set of rules in effect for each level is up to the UA and should follow language conventions. However,
this specification does recommend that:
z Following breaks be forbidden in ‘strict’ line breaking and allowed in ‘normal’:

{ breaks before Japanese small kana
{ breaks before the KATAKANA-HIRAGANA PROLONGED SOUND MARK (U+30FC)
Additionally, if the language is known to be Chinese or Japanese, breaks before hyphens

(U+2010, U+2013, U+301C, U+30A0) may be allowed in ‘normal’.
z Following breaks be forbidden in ‘normal’ and ‘strict’ line breaking and allowed in ‘loose’:
{ breaks before iteration marks (U+3005, U+303B, U+309D, U+309E, U+30FD, U+30FE)
{ breaks between inseparatable characters (U+2014, U+2025, U+2026, U+3033, U+3034,
U+3035)
If the language is known to be Chinese or Japanese, then additionally the following breaks may be
allowed in ‘loose’:
{ breaks before middle dots (U+003A, U+003B, U+30FB, U+FF1A, U+FF1B, U+FF65)
{ breaks before dividing punctuation marks (U+0021, U+003F, U+203C, U+2047, U+2048,
U+2049, U+FF01, U+FF1F)

{ breaks before postfixes (U+0025, U+00A2, U+00B0, U+2030, U+2032, U+2033, U+2103,
U+FF05, U+FFE0)
{ breaks after prefixes (U+0024, U+00A3, U+00A5, U+20AC, U+2116, U+FF04, U+FFE1,
U+FFE5)
5.2. Word Breaking Rules: the ‘word-break’ property
Name: word-break
Value: normal | keep-all | break-all | keep-words
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
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Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies line break opportunities within words. Values have the following meanings:
normal
Break lines according to their usual rules.
break-all
Lines may break between any two grapheme clusters within words. Hyphenation is not applied.
This option is used mostly in a context where the text is predominantly using CJK characters with
few non-CJK excerpts and it is desired that the text be better distributed on each line.
keep-all
Block characters can no longer create implied break points. Otherwise this option is equivalent to
‘normal’. This option is mostly used where the presence of word separator characters still creates
line-breaking opportunities, as in Korean.
keep-words
Lines may not break within words, even in block scripts (which would require the use of a
dictionary in languages such as Chinese and Japanese). This option is sometimes used in
combination with start-aligned (unjustified) text.
When shaping scripts such as Arabic are allowed to break within words due to ‘break-all’, the
characters must still be shaped as if the word were not broken.
6. Hyphenation
Hyphenation allows the controlled splitting of words to improve the layout of paragraphs. CSS3 Text
does not define the exact rules for hyphenation, but defines six properties and an at-rule that influence
hyphenation.
Whether hyphenation is applied can controlled with the ‘hyphens’ property.
6.1. Hyphenation Control: the ‘hyphens’ property
Name: hyphens
Value: none | manual | auto | all
Initial: manual
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property controls whether hyphenation is allowed to create more break opportunities within a line
of text. Values have the following meanings:
none
Words are not broken at line breaks, even if characters inside the word suggest line break points.
manual
Words are only broken at line breaks where there are characters inside the word that suggest line
break opportunities. Characters can be explicit or conditional.
In Unicode, U+00AD is a conditional "soft hyphen" and U+2010 is an explicit hyphen. Unicode
Standard Annex #14 describes the role of soft hyphens in Unicode line breaking. [UAX14]
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In HTML, represents the soft hyphen character which suggests a line break opportunity.
example
auto
Words can be broken at appropriate hyphenation points either as determined by hyphenation
characters inside the word or as determined automatically by a language-appropriate hyphenation
resource (such as those provided via ‘@hyphenation-resource’). Explicit hyphenation
characters inside a word take priority over automatic resources when determining hyphenation
points within the word.
all
All possible hyphenation points, as would be determined for ‘auto’, are marked. The visual
appearance of the mark is UA-dependent. This value is intended for debugging. Do we really need
this value?
Correct automatic hyphenation requires a hyphenation resource appropriate to the language of the text
being broken. The UA is therefore only required to automatically hyphenate text for which the author
has declared a language (e.g. via HTML lang or XML xml:lang) and for which it has an appropriate
hyphenation resource.
When shaping scripts such as Arabic are allowed to break within words due to hyphenation, the
characters must still be shaped as if the word were not broken.
6.2. Hyphens: the ‘hyphenate-character’ property
Name: hyphenate-character
Value: auto | <string> <string>?
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies strings that are shown between parts of hyphenated words. The ‘auto’ value
means that the user agent should find an appropriate value. If one string is specified, it appears at the
end of lines. If two strings are specified, the second string appears at the beginning of lines.
Is the use of hyphenate characters at the beginning of lines common enough for this to be part of the
specification?
In Latin scripts, the hyphen character (U+2010) is often used to indicate that a word has been split.
Normally, it will not be necessary to set it explicitly. However, this can easily be done:
article { hyphenate-character: "\2010" }
6.3. Hyphenation Character Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-before’ and

‘hyphenate-limit-after’ properties
Name: hyphenate-limit-before
Value: <integer> | auto
Initial: auto
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to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the minimum number of characters in a hyphenated word before the
hyphenation character. The ‘auto’ value means that the UA chooses a value that adapts to the current
layout.
Unless the UA is able to calculate a better value, it is suggested that ‘auto’ means 2.
Name: hyphenate-limit-after
Value: <integer> | auto
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the minimum number of characters in a hyphenated word after the hyphenation
character. The ‘auto’ value means that the UA chooses a value that adapts to the current layout.
Unless the UA is able to calculate a better value, it is suggested that ‘auto’ means 2.
6.4. Hyphenation Line Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-lines’ and ‘hyphenate-

limit-last’ properties
Name: hyphenate-limit-lines
Value: no-limit | <integer>
Initial: no-limit
Applies block containers
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property indicates the maximum number of successive hyphenated lines in an element. In some
cases, user agents may not be able to honor the specified value. The ‘no-limit’ value means that
there is no limit.
Name: hyphenate-limit-last
Value: none | always | column | page | spread
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property indicates hyphenation behavior at the end of elements, column, pages and spreads. A
spread is a set of two pages that are visible to the reader at the same time. Values are:
‘none’
No restrictions imposed.
‘always’
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The last full line of the element, or the last line before any column, page, or spread break inside
the element should not be hyphenated.
‘column’
The last line before any column, page, or spread break inside the element should not be
hyphenated.
‘page’
The last line before page or spread break inside the element should not be hyphenated.
‘spread’
The last line before any spread break inside the element should not be hyphenated.
p { hyphenate-limit-last: always }
div.chapter { hyphenate-limit-last: spread }
A paragraph may be formatted like this when ‘hyphenate-limit-last: none’ is set:
This is just a
simple example
to show Antarc-
tica.
With ‘hyphenate-limit-last: always’ one would get:
This is just a
simple example
to show
Antarctica.
6.5. Hyphenation Resources

6.5.1. The ‘@hyphenate-resource’ rule
ISSUE: this ‘@hyphenate-resource’ at-rule is a proposal that would replace the ‘hyphenate-
resource’ property.
advantages of ‘@hyphenate-resource’
z Minimal data storage (set per-language, not per-element).
z Requires language-tagging, which also enables the correct use of local dictionaries (and can
also trigger other typographic improvements).

z Can use RFC4647 language-mapping, which is more intelligent than :lang()'s prefix-matching.
(Could also argue that :lang() should use RFC4647.)

disadvantages of ‘@hyphenate-resource’
z Requires language-tagging; cannot select on any other criteria. Variations in hyphenation
rules within the same language in a given document will require use of subtags.
advantages of ‘hyphenate-resource’
z Can use any selector, not just language-mapping.
z Implemented in Prince.
disadvantages of ‘hyphenate-resource’
z Requires per-element data storage.
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Feedback on this issue is requested.
The ‘@hyphenate-resource’ at-rule allows the author to specify hyphenation resources that the UA
may use to help it hyphenate text correctly.
The ‘@hyphenate-resource’ rule consists of the ‘@hyphenate-resource’ at-keyword followed by

a hyphenation mapping declaration block, which has the same syntax as a declaration block, except
that the properties are language codes and the property values are comma-separated lists of <url>
component values indicating the location of author-suggested hyphenation resources ordered from
most to least preferred. The keyword value ‘local’ may be used in place of one of the <url> values to
suggest the use of a local (UA-provided) hyphenation resource. If the ‘local’ value is missing, it is
assumed to be the first (most-preferred) resource in the list.
The hyphenation resource list that applies to the text in an element is the one given by the last
hyphenation mapping declaration whose language code matches the language of the element.
Language code matching must be performed using RFC4647 [RFC4647] explain exactly how.
Since the last matching declaration takes effect, authors should list the most general mapping first, and
the most specific last. Note also that declarations are not concatenated, so if multiple dictionaries are
needed, they must be listed completely in each declaration.
@hyphenate-resource {
/* English */
en: url(en-GB.hy);
en-US: url(en-US.hy);
en-x-hixie: url(hixie.hy), local, url(en-GB.hy);
en-US-x-hixie: url(hixie.hy), local, url(en-US.hy);
/* français */
fr: url(fr.hy);
}
In the example above, the ‘en-x-hixie’ rule is used for both ‘en-x-hixie’ and ‘en-GB-x-
hixie’. It is not used for ‘en-US-x-hixie’ because the ‘en-US-x-hixie’ rule is given last. If the
order were reversed, the ‘en-US-x-hixie’ rule would never be used.
Use a format specifier, like @font-face? What is the format?
UAs are not required to support this at-rule.
6.5.2. The ‘hyphenate-resource’ property
Name: hyphenate-resource
Value: none | <uri> [, <uri> ]*
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies a comma-separated list of external resources that can help the UA determine
hyphenation points. If more than one resource is specified, the UA should consult each resource – in
turn, from the beginning – until it finds one that is able to determine hyphenation points in a word. The
‘none’ value indicates that no external resources are available. In any case, the UA can also use local
resources not listed on this property.
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Often, finding the right hyphenate resource is based on knowing the language of the text. The lang
attribute is recommended for encoding the language, and the corresponding selector is used in this
example:
:lang(dk) { hyphenate-resource: url("hyph_da_DK.dic"), url("hyph_da_NO.dic") }
UAs are not required to support this property.
Use a format specifier, like @font-face? What is the format?
7. Text Wrapping
Text wrapping is controlled by the ‘text-wrap’ and ‘word-wrap’ properties:
7.1. Text Wrap Settings: the ‘text-wrap’ property
Name: text-wrap
Value: normal | unrestricted | none | avoid
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the mode for text wrapping. Possible values:
normal
Lines may break at allowed break points, as determined by the line-breaking rules in effect. Line
breaking behavior defined for the WJ, ZW, and GL line-breaking classes in [UAX14] must be
honored.
none
Lines may not break; text that does not fit within the block container overflows it.
unrestricted
Lines may break between any two grapheme clusters. Line-breaking restrictions have no effect
and hyphenation does not take place. Character shaping is performed on each side of the break as
if the break had not occurred. This value is for terminal-style dumb line breaking. But has no use
cases.
avoid
Line breaking is suppressed within the element: the UA may only break within the element if there
are no other valid break points in the line. If the text breaks, line-breaking restrictions are honored
as for ‘normal’.
Regardless of the ‘text-wrap’ value, lines always break at forced breaks: for all values, line-breaking
behavior defined for the BK, CR, LF, CM NL, and SG line breaking classes in [UAX14] must be
honored.
When ‘text-wrap’ is set to ‘normal’ or ‘avoid’, UAs that allow breaks at punctuation other than spaces
should prioritize breakpoints. For example, if breaks after slashes have a lower priority than spaces, the
sequence "check /etc" will never break between the ‘/’ and the ‘e’. The UA may use the width of the
containing block, the text's language, and other factors in assigning priorities. As long as care is taken
to avoid such awkward breaks, allowing breaks at appropriate punctuation other than spaces is
recommended, as it results in more even-looking margins, particularly in narrow measures.
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7.1.1. Example of using ‘text-wrap: avoid’ in presenting a footer
The priority of breakpoints can be set to reflect the intended grouping of text.
Given the rules
footer { text-wrap: avoid; /* inherits to all descendants */ }
and the following markup:
<footer>
<venue>27th Internationalization and Unicode Conference</venue>
• <date>April 7, 2005</date> •
<place>Berlin, Germany</place>
</footer>
In a narrow window the footer could be broken as
27th Internationalization and Unicode Conference •

April 7, 2005 • Berlin, Germany
or in a narrower window as
27th Internationalization and Unicode

Conference • April 7, 2005 •
Berlin, Germany
but not as
27th Internationalization and Unicode Conference • April

7, 2005 • Berlin, Germany
7.2. Emergency Wrapping: the ‘word-wrap’ property
Name: word-wrap
Value: normal | break-word
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies whether the UA may break within a word to prevent overflow when an
otherwise-unbreakable string is too long to fit within the line box. It only has an effect when ‘text-wrap’
is either ‘normal’ or ‘avoid’. Possible values:
normal
Lines may break only at allowed break points. However, the restrictions introduced by ‘word-
break: keep-all’ may be relaxed to match ‘word-break: normal’ and the various
hyphenation limit properties may be ignored if there are no otherwise-acceptable break points in
the line.
break-word
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An unbreakable "word" may be broken at an arbitrary point if there are no otherwise-acceptable

break points in the line. Shaping characters are still shaped as if the word were not broken, and
grapheme clusters must together stay as one unit.
Should there be a ‘hyphenate’ value, that turns on hyphenation only for emergency breaking? (This
would give better results than ‘break-word’.)
Should there be a ‘none’ value, that prevents the relaxation of ‘word-break’ and hyphenation limit
restrictions?
8. Alignment and Justification
8.1. Text Alignment: the ‘text-align’ property
Name: text-align
Value: [ start | end | left | right | center | justify | match-parent ] || <string>
Initial: start
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: specified value, except for ‘match-parent’ (see prose)
This property describes how inline contents of a block are horizontally aligned if the contents do not
completely fill the line box. Values have the following meanings:
start
The inline contents are aligned to the start edge of the line box.
end
The inline contents are aligned to the end edge of the line box.
left
The inline contents are aligned to the left edge of the line box. In vertical text, ‘left’ aligns to the
edge of the line box that would be the start edge for left-to-right text.
right
The inline contents are aligned to the right edge of the line box. In vertical text, ‘right’ aligns to the
edge of the line box that would be the end edge for left-to-right text.
center
The inline contents are centered within the line box.
justify
The text is justified according to the method specified by the ‘text-justify’ property.
<string>
The string must be a single character; otherwise the declaration must be ignored. When applied to
a table cell, specifies the alignment character around which the cell's contents will align. See
below for further details.
match-parent
This value behaves the same as ‘inherit’ except that an inherited ‘start’ or ‘end’ keyword is
calculated against its parent's ‘direction’ value and results in a computed value of either ‘left’ or
‘right’.
A block of text is a stack of line boxes. In the case of ‘start’, ‘end’, ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘center’, this
property specifies how the inline-level boxes within each line box align with respect to the start and end
sides of the line box: alignment is not with respect to the viewport or containing block.
In the case of ‘justify’, the UA may stretch or shrink any inline boxes by adjusting their text in addition
to shifting their positions. (See also ‘text-justify’, ‘letter-spacing’, and ‘word-spacing’.) If an
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element's white space is set to be collapsible, then the UA is not required to adjust its text for the
purpose of justification and may instead treat the text as having no expansion opportunities. If the UA
chooses to adjust the text, then it must ensure that tab stops continue to line up as required by the
white space processing rules.
8.1.1. Details on Character-based Alignment in a Table Column
When multiple cells in a column have an alignment character specified, the alignment character of
each such cell in the column is centered along a single column-parallel axis and the rest of the text in
the column shifted accordingly. (Note that the strings do not have to be the same for each cell,
although they usually are.)
If the alignment character appears more than once in the text, the first instance is used for alignment. If
the alignment character does not appear in a cell at all, the string is aligned as if the alignment
character had been inserted at the end of its contents.
Character-based alignment occurs before table cell width computation so that auto width computations
can leave enough space for alignment. Whether column-spanning cells participate in the alignment
prior to or after width computation is undefined. If width constraints on the cell contents prevent full
alignment throughout the column, the resulting alignment is undefined.
A keyword value may be specified in conjunction with the <string> value; if it is not given, it defaults to
‘right’. This value is used:
z when character-based alignment is applied to boxes that are not table cells.
z when the text wraps to multiple lines.
z when the column is wide enough that the character alignment alone does not determine the
positions of its character-aligned contents. In this case the keyword alignment of the first cell in the
column with a specified alignment character is used to slide the position of the character-aligned
contents to match the keyword alignment insofar as possible without changing the width of the
column. For ‘center’, the UA may center the aligned contents using its extremes, center the
alignment axis itself (insofar as possible), or optically center the aligned contents some other way
(such as by taking a weighted average of the extent of the cells' contents to either side of the
axis).
z when a character-aligned cell spans more than one column. In this case the keyword alignment
value is used to determine which column's axis to align with: the leftmost column for ‘left’, the
rightmost column for ‘right’ and ‘center’, the startmost column for ‘start’, the endmost
column for ‘end’.
The following style sheet:
TD { text-align: "." center }
will cause the column of dollar figures in the following HTML table:
<TABLE>
<COL width="40">
<TR> <TH>Long distance calls
<TR> <TD> $1.30
<TR> <TD> $2.50
<TR> <TD> $10.80
<TR> <TD> $111.01
<TR> <TD> $85.
<TR> <TD> N/A
<TR> <TD> $.05
<TR> <TD> $.06
</TABLE>
to align along the decimal point. The table might be rendered as follows:
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+---------------------+
| Long distance calls |
+---------------------+
| $11.30 |
| $22.50 |
| $0.80 |
| $200567.01 |
| $85. |
| N/A |
| $.05 |
| $.06 |
+---------------------+
Right alignment is used by default for character-based alignment because numbering systems are
almost all left-to-right even in right-to-left writing systems, and the primary use case of character-based
alignment is for numerical alignment.
8.2. First Line Alignment: the ‘text-align-first’ property
Name: text-align-first
Value: auto | start
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property describes how the first line of a block or a line right after a forced line break is aligned.
Values have the following meanings:
‘auto’
Use the alignment given by ‘text-align’ (or by ‘text-align-last’ if that applies instead).
‘start’
The inline contents are aligned to the start edge of the line box. (This overrides ‘text-align-last’
if both apply to this line.)
8.3. Last Line Alignment: the ‘text-align-last’ property
Name: text-align-last
Value: auto | start | end | left | right | center | justify
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property describes how the last line of a block or a line right before a forced line break is aligned.
‘auto’ is equivalent to the value of the ‘text-align’ property except when ‘text-align’ is set to
‘justify’, in which case it is ‘justify’ when ‘text-justify’ is ‘distribute’ and ‘start’ otherwise.
All other values have the same meanings as in ‘text-align’.
8.4. Justification Method: the ‘text-justify’ property
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Name: text-justify
Value: auto | none | inter-word | inter-ideograph | inter-cluster | distribute | kashida
Initial: auto
Applies block containers and, optionally, inline elements
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property selects the justification method used when a line's alignment is set to ‘justify’. (See
‘text-align’.) The property applies to block containers, but the UA may (but is not required to) also
support it on inline elements. It takes the following values:
auto
The UA determines the justification algorithm to follow, based on a balance between performance
and adequate presentation quality.
One possible algorithm is to determine the behavior based on the language of the paragraph: the
UA can then choose appropriate value for the language, like ‘inter-ideograph’ for CJK, or
‘inter-word’ for English. Another possibility is to use a justification method that is a universal
compromise for all scripts, e.g. the ‘inter-cluster’ method with block scripts raised to first
priority.
none
Justification is disabled. This value is intended for use in user stylesheets to improve readability or
for accessibility purposes.
inter-word
Justification primarily changes spacing at word separators. This value is typically used for
languages that separate words using spaces, like English or (sometimes) Korean.
inter-ideograph
Justification primarily changes spacing at word separators and at inter-graphemic boundaries in
scripts that use no word spaces. This value is typically used for CJK languages.
inter-cluster
Justification primarily changes spacing at word separators and at grapheme cluster boundaries in
clustered scripts. This value is typically used for Southeast Asian scripts such as Thai.
distribute
Justification primarily changes spacing both at word separators and at grapheme cluster
boundaries in all scripts except those in the connected and cursive groups. This value is
sometimes used in e.g. Japanese.
kashida
Justification primarily stretches cursive scripts through the use of kashida or other calligraphic
elongation.
When justifying text, the user agent takes the remaining space between the ends of a line's contents
and the edges of its line box, and distributes that space throughout its contents so that the contents
exactly fill the line box. If the ‘letter-spacing’ and ‘word-spacing’ property values allow it, the user
agent may also distribute negative space, putting more content on the line than would otherwise fit
under normal spacing conditions. The exact justification algorithm is UA-dependent; however, CSS
provides some general guidelines which should be followed when any justification method other than
‘auto’ is specified.
CSS defines expansion opportunities as points where the justification algorithm may alter spacing
within the text. These expansion opportunities fall into priority levels as defined by the justification
method. Within a line, higher priority expansion opportunities should be expanded or compressed to
their limits before lower priority expansion opportunities are adjusted. (Expansion and compression
limits are given by the letter-spacing and word-spacing properties.)
How any remaining space is distributed once all expansion opportunities reach their limits is up to the
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UA. If the inline contents of a line cannot be stretched to the full width of the line box, then they must
be aligned as specified by the ‘text-align-last’ property. (If ‘text-align-last’ is ‘justify’, then
they must be aligned as for ‘center’ if ‘text-justify’ is ‘distribute’ and as ‘start’ otherwise.)
The expansion opportunity priorities for values of ‘text-justify’ are given in the table below. Space
must be distributed evenly among all types of expansion opportunities in a given prioritization group,
but may vary within a line due to changes in the font or letter-spacing and word-spacing values. Since
justification behavior varies by writing system, expansion opportunities are organized by script group.
The different types of expansion opportunities are defined as follows:
spaces
An expansion opportunity exists at spaces and other word separators. Expand as for ‘word-
spacing’.
block
clustered
discrete
An expansion opportunity exists between two grapheme clusters when at least one of them
belongs to the affected script group and the spacing that point has not already been altered at a
higher priority.
cursive
Words may be expanded through kashida elongation or other cursive expansion processes.
Kashida may be applied in discrete units or continuously, and the prioritization of kashida points is
UA-dependent: for example, the UA may apply more at the end of the line. The UA should not
apply kashida to fonts for which it is inappropriate. It may instead rely on other justification
methods that lengthen or shorten Arabic segments (e.g. by substituting in swash forms or optional
ligatures). Because elongation rules depend on the typeface style, the UA should rely on on the
font whenever possible rather than inserting kashida based on a font-independent ruleset. The UA
should limit elongation so that, e.g. in multi-script lines a short stretch of Arabic will not be forced
to soak up too much of the extra space by itself. If the UA does not support cursive elongation,
then no expansion points exist between grapheme clusters of these scripts.
punctuation
An expansion opportunity exists between a pair of characters from the Unicode symbols (S*) and
punctuation (P*) classes and at enabled autospace points. The default justification priority of these
points depends on the justification method as defined below; however there may be additional
rules controlling their justification behavior due to typographic tradition. For example, there are
traditionally no expansion opportunities between consecutive EM DASH U+2014, HORIZONTAL
BA U+2015, HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS U+2026, or TWO DOT LEADER U+2025 characters
[JLREQ]. The UA may introduce additional levels of priority to handle expansion opportunities
involving punctuation.
connected
No expansion opportunities occur between pairs of connected script grapheme clusters. Is this
correct?
Prioritization of Expansion Points

method: inter-word inter-ideograph distribute inter-cluster kashida auto
priority: 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd
spaces • • • • • ¿?
block • • • • • ¿?
clustered • • • • • ¿?
cursive • • • • • ¿?
discrete • • • • • ¿?
connected
punctuation • • • ??? ??? • ¿? ¿?
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The ‘auto’ column defined above is informative.
The UA may enable or break optional ligatures or use other font features such as alternate glyphs to
help justify the text under any method. This behavior is not defined by CSS.
Japanese is one of the languages for which compression is preferred to expansion in applying
justification.
3.8 Line Adjustment in [JLREQ] gives an example of a set of rules for how a text formatter can
justify Japanese text. It describes rules for cases where the ‘text-justify’ property is ‘trim
inter-ideograph’.
It produces an effect similar to cases where the computed value of ‘text-trim’ property does not
specify ‘force-end’ or ‘keep-end’. If the UA wants to prohibit this behavior, rule b. of 3.8.3 should
be omitted.
Note that the rules described in the document specifically target Japanese. Therefore they may
produce non-optimal results when used to justify other languages such as English. To make the
rules more applicable to other scripts, the UA could, for instance, omit the rule to compress half-
width spaces (rule a. of 3.8.3).
9. Spacing
The next two properties refer to the <spacing-limit> value type, which is defined as follows:
<spacing-limit>
[ normal | <length> | <percentage> ]
normal
Specifies the normal optimum/minimum/maximum spacing, as defined by the current font and/or
the user agent. Normal spacing should be percentage-based. Normal minimum and maximum
spacing must be based on the optimum spacing so that the minimum and maximum limits
increase and decrease with changes to the optimum spacing. Normal minimum and maximum
spacing may also vary according to some measure of the amount of text on a line (e.g. block width
divided by font size): larger measures can accommodate tighter spacing constraints. Normal
optimum/minimum/maximum spacing may also vary based on the value of the ‘text-justify’
property, the element's language, and other factors. Normal minimum, maximum, and optimal
spacing between a pair of connected or cursive grapheme clusters is always zero.
<length> or <percentage>
Specifies extra spacing in addition to the normal spacing. Percentages are with respect to the
width of the affected character. Values may be negative, but there may be implementation-
dependent limits.
9.1. Word Spacing: the ‘word-spacing’ property
Name: word-spacing
Value: <spacing-limit> {1,3}
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: refers to width of space (U+0020) glyph
Media: visual
Computed value: ‘normal’ or computed value or percentage
This property specifies the minimum, maximum, and optimal spacing between words. If only one value
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is specified, then it represents the optimal spacing and the minimum and maximum are both ‘normal’. If
two values are specified, then the first represents both the optimal spacing and the minimum spacing,
and the second represents the maximum spacing. If three values are specified, they represent the
optimum, minimum, and maximum respectively.
If the value of the optimum or maximum spacing is less than the value of the minimum spacing, then its
used value is the minimum spacing. If the optimum spacing is greater than the maximum spacing then
its used value is the maximum spacing. (This substitution occurs after inheritance.)
In the absence of justification the optimal spacing must be used. The text justification process may
alter the spacing from its optimum (see the ‘text-justify’ property, above) but must not violate the
minimum spacing limit and should also avoid exceeding the maximum.
Spacing is applied to each word-separator character left in the text after the white space processing
rules have been applied and should be applied half on each side of the character. This is correct for
Ethiopian and doesn't matter for invisible spaces, but is it correct for Tibetan? Most publications seem
to add space after the tsek mark during justification. Word-separator characters include the space
(U+0020), the no-break space (U+00A0), the Ethiopic word space (U+1361), the Aegean word
separators (U+10100,U+10101), the Ugaritic word divider (U+1039F), and the Tibetan tsek (U+0F0B,
U+0F0C). Is this list correct? If there are no word-separator characters, or if the word-separating
character has a zero advance width (such as the zero width space U+200B) then the user agent must
not create an additional spacing between words. General punctuation and fixed-width spaces (such as
U+3000 and U+2000 through U+200A) are not considered word-separators.
9.2. Tracking: the ‘letter-spacing’ property
Name: letter-spacing
Value: <spacing-limit>{1,3}
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: refers to width of space (U+0020) glyph
Media: visual
Computed value: ‘normal’ or computed value or percentage
This property specifies the minimum, maximum, and optimal spacing between grapheme clusters. If
only one value is specified, then it represents all three values. If two values are specified, then the first
represents both the optimal spacing and the minimum spacing, and the second represents the
maximum spacing. If three values are specified, they represent the optimum, minimum, and maximum
respectively.
If the value of the optimum or maximum spacing is less than the value of the minimum spacing, then its
used value is the minimum spacing. If the optimum spacing is greater than the maximum spacing then
its used value is the maximum spacing. (This substitution occurs after inheritance.)
In the absence of justification the optimal spacing must be used. The text justification process may
alter the spacing from its optimum (see the ‘text-justify’ property, above) but must not violate the
minimum spacing limit and should also avoid exceeding the maximum. Letter-spacing is applied in
addition to any word-spacing. ‘normal’ optimum letter-spacing is typically zero.
A grapheme cluster is what a language user considers to be a character or a basic unit of the script.
The term is described in detail in the Unicode Technical Report: Text Boundaries [UAX29]. This
specification uses the extended grapheme cluster definition in [UAX29] (not the legacy grapheme
cluster definition). The UA may further tailor the definition as allowed by Unicode.
Letter-spacing must not be applied at the beginning or at the end of a line. At element boundaries, the
letter spacing is given by and rendered within the innermost element that contains the boundary.
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For example, given the markup
<P>a<LS>b<Z>cd</Z><Y>ef</Y></LS>g</P>
and the style sheet
LS { letter-spacing: 1em; }
Z { letter-spacing: 0.3em; }
Y { letter-spacing: 0.4em; }
the spacing would be
a[0]b[1em]c[0.3em]d[1em]e[0.4em]f[0]g
UAs may apply letter-spacing to cursive scripts. In this case, UAs should extend the space between
disjoint graphemes as specified above and extend the visible connection between cursively connected
graphemes by the same amount (rather than leaving a gap). The UA may use glyph substitution or
other font capabilities to spread out the letters. If the UA cannot expand a cursive script without
breaking the cursive connections, it should not apply letter-spacing between grapheme clusters of that
script at all.
When the resulting space between two characters is not the same as the default space, user agents
should not use optional ligatures.
9.3. Fullwidth Kerning: the ‘text-trim’ property

Syntax is derived as a shorthand of the following theoretical
properties (defaults given first):
text-trim-start: keep-start | force-start

text-trim-end: allow-end | force-end | keep-end | keep-fullstop
text-trim-adjacent: force-adjacent | keep-adjacent
text-trim-kana: ...
text-trim-justify: justify | no-justify
Filtering out the default values (and ignoring trim-kana),

we get the following shorthand:
text-trim: normal |
force-start ||
[ force-end | keep-end | keep-fullstop] ||
keep-adjacent ||
no-justify
Name: text-trim
Value: normal | force-start || [ keep-end | force-end ] || no-justify
Initial: normal
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property determines whether or not a fullwidth punctuation character should be trimmed (kerned).
Values are defined as follows:
normal
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Trim (kern) the blank half of fullwidth closing punctuation at the end of each line if it does not
otherwise fit prior to justification.
force-start
Trim (kern) the blank half of fullwidth opening punctuation at the beginning of each line.
keep-end
Do not trim the blank half of fullwidth opening punctuation at the end of each line.
force-end
Trim (kern) the blank half of fullwidth closing punctuation at the end of each line.
no-justify
The blank portions of fullwidth punctuation must not be trimmed during the justification process. (If
this value is not specified, the justification process may trim the blank portions of fullwidth
punctuation glyphs.) An example of compression rules is given for Japanese in 3.8 Line
Adjustment in [JLREQ].
Figure out proper interaction with text-align: end. Does allow-end behavior make sense? Do we want
allow-start instead?
In all cases, the UA must trim (kern) the blank half of fullwidth opening punctuation if its previous
adjacent character is a fullwidth opening punctuation, fullwidth middle dot punctuation, fullwidth closing
punctuation, or ideographic space (U+3000). It must also trim (kern) the blank half of fullwidth closing
punctuation if its next adjacent character is a fullwidth closing punctuation, fullwidth middle dot
punctuation, or ideographic space (U+3000).
The following example table lists the punctuation pairs affected by adjancent-pairs trimming. It uses
halfwidth equivalents to approximate the trimming effect.
Demonstration of adjacent-pairs punctuation trimming

Combination Sample Pair Looks Like
Opening—Opening 〔+（〔(
Middle Dot—Opening ・+（・(
Closing—Opening 〕+（〕(
Ideographic Space—Opening +（ (
Closing—Closing ）+〕 )〕
Closing—Middle Dot ）+・ )・
Closing—Ideographic Space ）+ )
In the context of this property the following definitions apply:
classes and Unicode code point should be reviewed.
fullwidth opening punctuation

Includes any opening punctuation character (Unicode category Ps) that belongs to the CJK
Symbols and Punctuation block (U+3000–U+303F) or is categorized as East Asian Fullwidth (F)
by [UAX11]. Also includes LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (U+2018) and LEFT DOUBLE
QUOTATION MARK (U+201C). When trimmed, the left (for horizontal text) or top (for vertical text)
half is kerned.
fullwidth closing punctuation
Includes any closing punctuation character (Unicode category Pe) that belongs to the CJK
Symbols and Punctuation block (U+3000–U+303F) or is categorized as East Asian Fullwidth (F)
by [UAX11]. Also includes RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (U+2019) and RIGHT DOUBLE
QUOTATION MARK (U+201D). May also include fullwidth colon punctuation and/or fullwidth dot
punctuation (see below). When trimmed, the right (for horizontal text) or bottom (for vertical text)
half is kerned.
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fullwidth middle dot punctuation

Includes MIDDLE DOT (U+00B7), HYPHENATION POINT (U+2027), and KATAKANA MIDDLE
DOT (U+30FB). May also include fullwidth colon punctuation and/or fullwidth dot punctuation (see
below).
fullwidth colon punctuation
Includes FULLWIDTH COLON (U+FF1A) and FULLWIDTH SEMICOLON (U+FF1B).
fullwidth dot punctuation
Includes IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA (U+3001), IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP (U+3002),
FULLWIDTH COMMA (U+FF0C), FULLWIDTH FULL STOP (U+FF0E).
Fullwidth opening and closing punctuation must not be trimmed if the glyph is not actually fullwidth.
This includes the case where the glyph is not fullwidth as a result of the kerning in the font. A fullwidth
glyph is one that has the same advance width as a typical Han character in the same font.
Whether fullwidth colon punctuation and fullwidth dot punctuation should be considered fullwidth
closing punctuation or fullwidth middle dot punctuation depends on where in the glyph's box the
punctuation is drawn. If the punctuation is centered, then it should be considered middle dot
punctuation. If the punctuation is drawn to one side (left in horizontal text, top in vertical text) and the
other half is therefore blank then the punctuation should be considered closing punctuation and
trimmed accordingly.
The UA must classify fullwidth colon punctuation and fullwidth dot punctuation under either the fullwidth
closing punctuation category or the fullwidth middle dot punctuation category as appropriate. The UA
may rely on language conventions and the layout orientation (horizontal vs. vertical), and/or font
information to determine this categorization. The UA may also add additional characters to any
category as appropriate.
The following informative table summarizes language conventions for classifying fullwidth colon and
dot punctuation:
colon punctuation dot punctuation

Simplified Chinese (horizontal) closing closing
Simplified Chinese (vertical) closing closing
Traditional Chinese middle dot middle dot
Korean middle dot closing
Japanese middle dot closing
Note, that for Chinese fonts at least, the author observes that the standard convention is often not
followed.
9.4. Adding space: the ‘text-autospace’ property
Name: text-autospace
Value: none | [ ideograph-numeric || ideograph-alpha || punctuation ]
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
When a run of non-ideographic or numeric characters appears inside of ideographic text, a certain
amount of space is often preferred on both sides of the non-ideographic text to separate it from the
surrounding ideographic glyphs. This property controls the creation of that space when rendering the
text. That added width does not correspond to the insertion of additional space characters, but instead
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to the width increment of existing glyphs.
(A commonly used algorithm for determining this behavior is specified in JIS X-4051 [JIS4051].)
This property is additive with the ‘word-spacing’ and ‘letter-spacing’ [CSS21] properties. That is, the
amount of spacing contributed by the ‘letter-spacing’ setting (if any) is added to the spacing created
by ‘text-autospace’. The same applies to ‘word-spacing’.
The space added can be compressed or expanded during the justification process as specified in the
‘text-justify’ property.
This property applies only to the same inline element context, and can apply across elements if in the
same inline element context.
none
No extra space is created.
ideograph-numeric
Creates 1/4em extra spacing between runs of ideographic letters and non-ideographic numeric
glyphs.
ideograph-alpha
Creates 1/4em extra spacing between runs of ideographic letters and non-ideographic letters,
such as Latin-based, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic or Hebrew.
punctuation
Creates extra non-breaking spacing around punctuation as required by language-specific
typographic conventions. For example, if the element's content language is French, narrow no-
break space (U+202F) and no-break space (U+00A0) should be inserted where required by
French typographic guidelines.
It was requested to add a value for doubling the space after periods.
At element boundaries, the font size of the extra spacing is given by and rendered within the innermost
element that contains the boundary.
In the context of this property the following definitions apply:
Reviews and feedbacks to the classes/code points are appreciated.
Ideographic letters
z All characters in the range of U+3041 to U+30FF, except that belongs to Unicode Punctuation
[P*] category.
z CJK Strokes (U+31C0 to U+31EF).
z Katakana Phonetic Extensions (U+31F0 to U+31FF).
z All characters that belongs to Han Unicode Script Property [UAX24].
Non-ideographic numerals
z All characters that belongs to Unicode Number, Decimal Digit [Nd] category.
z Except any of the following conditions are met:
{ Is categorized as East Asian Fullwidth (F) by [UAX11].
{ Is upright in vertical text flow using the ‘text-orientation’ property or the ‘text-combine’
property.
Non-ideographic letters
z All characters that belongs to Unicode Letters [L*] and Mark [M*] category.
z Except any of the following conditions are met:
{ Is defined as Ideographic letters.
{ Is categorized as East Asian Fullwidth (F) by [UAX11].
{ Is upright in vertical text flow using the ‘text-orientation’ property or the ‘text-combine’
property.
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10. Edge Effects
10.1. First Line Indentation: the ‘text-indent’ property
Name: text-indent
Value: [ <length> | <percentage> ] && [ hanging || each-line ]?
Initial: 0
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: refers to width of containing block
Media: visual
Computed value: the percentage as specified or the absolute length
This property specifies the indentation applied to lines of inline content in a block. The indent is treated
as a margin applied to the start edge of the line box. Unless otherwise specified via the ‘each-line’
and/or ‘hanging’ keywords, only lines that are the first formatted line of an element. For example, the
first line of an anonymous block box is only affected if it is the first child of its parent element.
<length>
Gives the amount of the indent as an absolute length.
<percentage>
Gives the amount of the indent as a percentage of the containing block's logical width.
each-line
Indentation affects the first line of the block container as well as each line after a forced line break,
but does not affect lines after a text wrap break.
hanging
Inverts which lines are affected.
If ‘text-align’ is ‘start’ and ‘text-indent’ is ‘5em’ in left-to-right text with no floats present, then
first line of text will start 5em into the block:
Since CSS1 it has been possible

to indent the first line of a block
element using the 'text-indent'
property.
Note that since the ‘text-indent’ property inherits, when specified on a block element, it will affect
descendant inline-block elements. For this reason, it is often wise to specify ‘text-indent: 0’ on
elements that are specified ‘display: inline-block’.
10.2. Hanging Punctuation: the ‘hanging-punctuation’ property
Name: hanging-punctuation
Value: none | [ first || last || [ allow-end | force-end ] ]
Initial: none
Applies inline elements
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
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This property determines whether a punctuation mark, if one is present, may be placed outside the line
box (or in the indent) at the start or at the end of a full line of text. Such hanging punctuation is not
considered when measuring the line's contents for indentation, alignment, or justification. Values have
the following meanings:
first
Punctuation (specifically, opening brackets and quotes) may hang outside the start edge of the
first line. This applies to all characters in the Unicode categories Ps, Pf, Pi.
last
Punctuation (specifically, closing brackets and quotes) may hang outside the start edge of the first
line. This applies to all characters in the Unicode categories Pe, Pf, and Pi.
allow-end
Punctuation (specifically, stops and commas) may hang outside the end edge of any line if the
punctuation does not otherwise fit prior to justification.
force-end
Punctuation (specifically, stops and commas) may hang outside the end edge of any line.
Stops and commas allowed to hang include: U+002C COMMA, U+002E FULL STOP, U+060C
ARABIC COMMA, U+06D4 ARABIC FULL STOP, U+3001 IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA, U+3002
IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP, U+FF0C FULLWIDTH COMMA, U+FF0E FULLWIDTH FULL STOP,
U+FE50 SMALL COMMA, U+FE51 SMALL IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA, U+FE52 SMALL FULL STOP,
U+FF61 HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP, U+FF64 HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA.
The UA may include other characters as appropriate.
Should other characters be included?
The CSS Working Group would appreciate if such UAs would inform the working group of such
additional characters.
In all cases only one punctuation character may hang outside the edge of the line. Furthermore, start
and end borders or padding on an inline element are never allowed to hang.
Note that if there is not sufficient padding on the block container, hanging punctuation may trigger
overflow.
Check for Western use-cases. Add hyphens value?
11. Text Decoration
11.1. Line Decoration: Underline, Overline, and Strike-Through
Sync this against CSS2.1.
The following properties describe line decorations that are added to the content of an element. When
specified on an inline element, such decoration affects all the boxes generated by that element; for all
other elements, the decorations are propagated to an anonymous inline box that wraps all the in-flow
inline children of the element, and to any block-level in-flow descendants. They are not, however,
further propagated to floating and absolutely positioned descendants, nor to the contents of inline-
table and inline-block descendants. The value of the text-decoration-line property on descendant
elements therefore cannot have any effect on the decoration of the ancestor; to skip descendants, use
the text-decoration-skip property.
By default underlines, overlines, and line-throughs are applied only to text (including white space, letter
spacing, and word spacing): margins, borders, and padding are skipped. Elements containing no text,
such as images, are likewise not decorated. The text-decoration-skip property can be used to
modify this behavior, for example allowing inline replaced elements to be underlined or requiring that
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white space be skipped.
The UA should place the start and end of the line inwards from the content edge of the decorating
element so that, e.g. two underlined elements side-by-side do not appear to have a single underline.
(This is important in Chinese, where underlining is a form of punctuation.)
In determining the position and thickness of text decoration lines, user agents may consider the font
sizes and dominant baselines of descendants, but for a given element's decoration must use the same
baseline and thickness on each line. Relatively positioning a descendant moves all text decorations
affecting it along with the descendant's text; it does not affect calculation of the decoration's initial
position on that line. The color and line style of decorations must remain the same on all decorations
applied by a given element, even if descendant elements have different color or line style values.
The following figure shows the averaging for underline:
In the three fragments of underlined text, the underline is drawn consecutively lower and thicker as
the ratio of large text to small text increases.
In the following style sheet and document fragment:
blockquote { text-decoration: underline; color: blue; }

em { display: block; }
cite { color: fuchsia; }
<blockquote>
<p>
<span>
Help, help!
<em> I am under a hat! </em>
<cite> —GwieF </cite>

</span>
</p>
</blockquote>
...the underlining for the blockquote element is propagated to an anonymous inline element that
surrounds the span element, causing the text "Help, help!" to be blue, with the blue underlining from
the anonymous inline underneath it, the color being taken from the blockquote element. The
<em>text</em> in the em block is also underlined, as it is in an in-flow block to which the underline is
propagated. The final line of text is fuchsia, but the underline underneath it is still the blue underline
from the anonymous inline element.
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This diagram shows the boxes involved in the example above. The rounded aqua line represents the
anonymous inline element wrapping the inline contents of the paragraph element, the rounded blue
line represents the span element, and the orange lines represent the blocks.
11.1.1. Text Decoration Lines: the ‘text-decoration-line’ property
Name: text-decoration-line
Value: none | [ underline || overline || line-through ]
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: no (but see prose)
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Specifies what line decorations, if any, are added to the element. Values have the following meanings:
none
Produces no text decoration.
underline
Each line of text is underlined.
overline
Each line of text has a line above it (i.e. on the opposite side from an underline).
line-through
Each line of text has a line through the middle.
11.1.2. Text Decoration Color: the ‘text-decoration-color’ property
Name: text-decoration-color
Value: <color>
Initial: currentColor
to:
Inherited: no
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the color of text decoration (underlines overlines, and line-throughs) set on the
element with text-decoration-line.
11.1.3. Text Decoration Style: the ‘text-decoration-style’ property
Name: text-decoration-style
Value: solid | double | dotted | dashed | wave
Initial: solid
to:
Inherited: no
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Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies the style of the line(s) drawn for text decoration specified on the element.
Values have the same meaning as for the border-style properties [CSS3BG].
11.1.4. Text Decoration Shorthand: the ‘text-decoration’ property
Name: text-decoration
Value: <text-decoration-line> || <text-decoration-color> || <text-decoration-style> || blink
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: no
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property is a shorthand for setting text-decoration-line, text-decoration-color, and text-

decoration-style in one declaration. Omitted values are set to their initial values. A text-decoration
declaration that omits both the text-decoration-color and text-decoration-style values is
backwards-compatible with CSS Levels 1 and 2.
If the blink keyword is specified the text blinks (alternates between visible and invisible). Conforming
user agents may simply not blink the text. Note that not blinking the text is one technique to satisfy
checkpoint 3.3 of WAI-UAAG.
The following example underlines unvisited links with a solid blue underline in CSS1 and CSS2 UAs
and a navy dotted underline in CSS3 UAs.
:link {
color: blue;
text-decoration: underline;
text-decoration: navy dotted underline; /* Ignored in CSS1/CSS2 UAs */
}
11.1.5. Text Decoration Line Continuity: the ‘text-decoration-skip’ property
Name: text-decoration-skip
Value: none | [ objects || spaces || ink || all ]
Initial: objects
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property specifies what parts of the element's content any text decoration affecting the element
must skip over. It controls all text decoration lines drawn by the element and also any text decoration
lines drawn by its ancestors. Values have the following meanings:
none
Skip nothing: text-decoration is drawn for all text content and for inline replaced elements.
objects
Skip this element if it is an atomic inline (such as an image or inline-block).
spaces
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Skip white space: this includes regular spaces (U+0020) and tabs (U+0009), as well as nbsp
(U+00A0), ideographic space (U+3000), all fixed width spaces (such as U+2000–U+200A,
U+202F and U+205F), and any adjacent letter-spacing or word-spacing.
ink
Skip over where glyphs are drawn: interrupt the decoration line to let text show through where the
text decoration would otherwise cross over a glyph. The UA may also skip a small distance to
either side of the glyph outline.
all
Skip over all content in this element.
Do we need a value that doesn't skip margins and padding?
Note that this property inherits and that descendant elements can have a different setting. Therefore a
child of an element with text-decoration-skip: all can cause its grandparent's underline to be
drawn by specifying text-decoration-skip: none.
11.1.6. Text Underline Position: the ‘text-underline-position’ property
Name: text-underline-position
Value: auto | alphabetic | below left | below right
Initial: auto
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property sets the position of an underline specified on the same element: it does not affect
underlines specified by ancestor elements. Values have the following meanings:
‘auto’
The user agent may use any algorithm to determine the underline's position; however in vertical
tyographic mode, if the language of the element is set to Japanese or Korean (matches :lang(ja)
or :lang(ko)) the underline must be drawn on the right side of the text as described for ‘below
right’.
It is suggested that the underline position be ‘alphabetic’ unless it crosses either subscripted
(or otherwise lowered) text, or it affects characters from Asian scripts such as Han or Tibetan, for
which an alphabetic underline is too high: in such cases, aligning to the em box edge as described
for ‘below left’ is more appropriate.
‘alphabetic’
The underline is aligned with the alphabetic baseline. In this case the underline is likely to cross
some descenders.
‘below left’
The underline is aligned with the under edge of the element's content box. In this case the
underline usually does not cross the descenders. (This is sometimes called "accounting"
underline.) If the underline affects descendants with a lower content edge, the user agent should
shift the underline down further to the lowest underlined content box edge. The user agent may
ignore elements with ‘vertical-align’ values given as lengths, percentages, ‘top’, or
‘bottom’ when making this adjustment. (Note that images that are not affected by the underline
per ‘text-decoration-skip’ will not affect the position of the underline.)
‘below right’
In horizontal typographic mode, this value is equivalent to ‘below left’. In vertical typographic
mode, the underline is aligned as for ‘below left’, except it is aligned to the right edge of the
text. If this causes the underline to be drawn on the "over" side of the text, then an overline also
switches sides and is drawn on the "under" side.
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In some cases (such as in OpenType) the font format can offer information about the appropriate
position of an underline. Typically this information gives the position of an ‘alphabetic’ underline; in
some cases (especially in CJK fonts), it gives the position of a ‘below left’ underline. (In this case,
the font's underline metrics typically touch the bottom edge of the em box). The UA is encouraged to
use information (such as the underline thickness, or appropriate alphabetic alignment) from the font
wherever appropriate.
11.2. Emphasis Marks
East Asian documents traditionally use small symbols next to each glyph to emphasize a run of text.
For example:
Accent emphasis (shown in blue for clarity) applied to Japanese text
11.2.1. Emphasis Mark Style: the ‘text-emphasis-style’ property
Name: text-emphasis-style
Value: none | [ [ filled | open ] || [ dot | circle | double-circle | triangle | sesame ] ] | <string>
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: ‘none’, a pair of keywords representing the shape and fill, or a string
This property applies emphasis marks to the element's text. Values have the following meanings:
none
No emphasis marks.
filled
The shape is filled with solid color.
open
The shape is hollow.
dot
Draw small circles as marks. The filled dot is U+2022 ‘•’, and the open dot is U+25E6 ‘◦’.
circle
Draw large circles as marks. The filled circle is U+25CF ‘●’, and the open circle is U+25CB ‘○’.
double-circle
Draw double circles as marks. The filled double-circle is U+25C9 ‘◉’, and the open double-circle is
U+25CE ‘◎’.
triangle
Draw triangles as marks. The filled triangle is U+25B2 ‘▲’, and the open triangle is U+25B3 ‘△’.
sesame
Draw sesames as marks. The filled sesame is U+FE45 ‘﹅’, and the open sesame is U+FE46 ‘﹆’.
<string>
Draw the given string as marks. Authors should not specify more than one grapheme cluster in
<string>. The UA may truncate or ignore strings consisting of more than one grapheme cluster.
If a shape keyword is specified but neither of ‘filled’ nor ‘open’ is specified, ‘filled’ is assumed. If
only ‘filled’ or ‘open’ is specified, the shape keyword computes to ‘circle’ in horizontal writing
mode and ‘sesame’ in vertical writing mode.
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The marks should be drawn using the element's font settings with its size scaled down to 50%.
However, not all fonts have all these glyphs, and some fonts use inappropriate sizes for emphasis
marks in these code points. The UA may opt to use a font known to be good for emphasis marks, or
the marks may instead be synthesized by the UA. Marks must remain upright in both horizontal and
vertical typographic modes: they do not rotate to match the writing mode.
One example of good fonts for emphasis marks is Adobe's opensource project, Kenten Generic
OpenType Font, which is specially designed for the emphasis marks.
The marks are drawn once for each grapheme cluster. However, emphasis marks are not drawn for a
grapheme cluster consisting of:
z Word separators or characters belonging to the Unicode separator classes (Z*). (But note that
emphasis marks are drawn for a space that combines with any combining characters.)
z Characters belonging to the Unicode classes for control codes and unassigned characters (Cc, Cf,
Cn).
z Anything else? Probably need to exclude punctuation, but which punctuation exactly? Can we
determine that Unicode-wide?
If emphasis marks are drawn for grapheme clusters for which ruby is drawn in the same position as the
emphasis mark, the ruby should be stacked between the emphasis marks and the base text. In this
case, the position of the emphasis marks for a given element should be determined as if all grapheme
clusters have ruby boxes of the same height as the highest ruby box in the element. If the UA is not
capable of drawing ruby and emphasis marks on the same side, the UA may hide ruby and draw only
emphasis marks.
Emphasis marks applied to 4 characters, and ruby to 2 of them
11.2.2. Emphasis Mark Color: the ‘text-emphasis-color’ property
Name: text-emphasis-color
Value: <color>
Initial: currentcolor
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property describes the foreground color of the emphasis marks.
11.2.3. Emphasis Mark Shorthand: the ‘text-emphasis’ property
Name: text-emphasis
Value: ‘<text-emphasis-style>’ || ‘<text-emphasis-color>’
Initial: see individual properties
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
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Computed value: see individual properties
This property is a shorthand for setting text-emphasis-style and text-emphasis-color in one

declaration. Omitted values are set to their initial values.
Note that ‘text-emphasis-position’ is not reset in this shorthand. This is because typically the shape
and color vary, but the position is consistent for a particular language throughout the document.
Therefore the position should inherit independently.
11.2.4. Emphasis Mark Position: the ‘text-emphasis-position’ property
Name: text-emphasis-position
Value: above right | below right
Initial: above right
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
This property describes where emphasis marks are drawn at. The values have following meanings:
‘above right’
Draw marks above the text in horizontal layout, to the right in vertical typographic mode. This is
the default position.
‘below right’
Draw marks below the text in horizontal layout, to the right in vertical typographic mode.
Do we need to add ‘left’ combinations?
Emphasis marks are drawn exactly as if each grapheme cluster was assigned the mark as its ruby
annotation text with the ruby position given by ‘text-emphasis-position’ and the ruby alignment as
centered.
The effect of emphasis marks on the line height is the same as for ruby text.
Note, the preferred position of emphasis marks depends on the language. In Japanese for example,
the preferred position is ‘above right’. In Chinese, on the other hand, the preferred position is
‘below right’. The informative table below summarizes the preferred emphasis mark positions for
Chinese and Japanese:
Preferred emphasis mark and ruby position

Preferred mark position
Language Illustration
Horizontal Vertical
Japanese above right
Chinese below right
11.3. Text Shadows: the ‘text-shadow’ property
Name: text-shadow
Value: none | [<shadow>, ] * <shadow>
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
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Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: a color plus three absolute <length>s
This property accepts a comma-separated list of shadow effects to be applied to the text of the
element. <shadow> is the same as defined for the ‘box-shadow’ property except that the ‘inset’
keyword is not allowed. The shadow is applied to all of the element's text as well as any text
decorations it specifies. When a text outline is specified, the shadow shadows the outlined shape
rather than the glyph shape.
The shadow effects are applied front-to-back: the first shadow is on top. The shadows may thus
overlay each other, but they never overlay the text itself. The shadow must be painted at a stack level
between the element's border and/or background, if present, and the elements text and text
decoration. UAs should avoid painting text shadows over text in adjacent elements belonging to the
same stack level and stacking context. (This may mean that the exact stack level of the shadows
depends on whether the element has a border or background: the exact stacking behavior of text
shadows is thus UA-defined.)
Unlike ‘box-shadow’, text shadows are not clipped to the shadowed shape and may show through if the
text is partially-transparent. Like ‘box-shadow’, text shadows do not influence layout, and do not trigger
scrolling or increase the size of the scrollable area.
The painting order of shadows defined here is the opposite of that defined in the 1998 CSS2
Recommendation.
The text-shadow property applies to both the ::first-line and ::first-letter pseudo-elements.
11.4. Text Outlines: the ‘text-outline’ property
Name: text-outline
Value: none | [ <color> <length> <length>? | <length> <length>? <color> ]
Initial: none
to:
Inherited: yes
Percentages: N/A
Media: visual
Computed value: a color plus two absolute <length>s
This property specifies a text outline where the first length represents the outline's thickness and the
second represents an optional blur radius. The outline never overlays the text itself. Its shape is the
same as that obtained by applying text shadows in every radial direction, i.e. all text shadows whose
offsets satisfy the equation x2 + y2 = thickness2. The blur radius is treated the same as for ‘text-
shadow’.
The Timed-Text WG had suggestions for some keywords (text-outline: normal|heavy|light;) as well as
a <length> thickness. Should these be added? How would they be defined? (Maybe use
(thin|medium|thick) as in border-width?)
A color value must be specified before or after the length values of the outline effect. The color value
will be used as the color of the outline.
Implementations may ignore the blur radius when text outline is combined with a text shadow.
The spread radius argument added to the ‘text-shadow’ property makes this property somewhat
redundant. Should it be kept?
Changes
07/04/2011
Changes from the October 2010 CSS3 Text WD
Major changes include:
z Updated line break transformation rules to use East Asian Width property, consistent with
behavior in MSIE.
z Moved ‘keep-all’ value of ‘line-break’ back to ‘word-break’ and adjusted explanation of
properties to match this split.
z Added ‘keep-words’ value to ‘word-break’.
z Renamed ‘newspaper’ value of ‘line-break’ to ‘loose’.
z Copied hyphenation controls over from CSS3 Generated Content for Paged Media Module and
updated with feedback from TPAC and Oslo F2F.
z Renamed ‘suppress’ value of ‘text-wrap’ to ‘avoid’ to be consistent with ‘page-break-inside’,
which has similar behavior.
z Added more details to behavior of ‘text-align’ with <string> values.
z Added ‘text-align-first’.
z Added ‘auto’ value to ‘text-align-last’.
z Added ‘none’ value ot ‘text-justify’.
z Reorganized values of ‘punctuation-trim’ and renamed to ‘text-trim’.
z Removed ‘trim’ keyword of ‘text-justify’ to control it through ‘text-trim’.
z Removed ‘ideograph-space’ and ‘ideograph-parenthesis’ values of ‘text-autospace’.
z Changed definitions of ideographic letters, non-ideographic letters, and non-ideographic numerals
for ‘text-autospace’.
z Changed values of ‘text-emphasis-position’ and ‘text-underline-position’ to allow specifying
common combinations of horizontal and vertical positions.
z Changed preferred value of ‘text-emphasis-position’ for Chinese (Traditional).
z Removed definition of the ‘text-overflow’ property, which has been moved to [CSS3UI].
Acknowledgements
This specification would not have been possible without the help from: Ayman Aldahleh, Bert Bos,
Tantek Çelik, Stephen Deach, Martin Dürst, Laurie Anna Edlund, Ben Errez, Yaniv Feinberg, Arye
Gittelman, Ian Hickson, Martin Heijdra, Richard Ishida, Koji Ishii, Masayasu Ishikawa, Michael
Jochimsen, Eric LeVine, Ambrose Li, Håkon Wium Lie, Chris Lilley, Ken Lunde, Shinyu Murakami,
Paul Nelson, Chris Pratley, Marcin Sawicki, Arnold Schrijver, Rahul Sonnad, Michel Suignard, Takao
Suzuki, Frank Tang, Chris Thrasher, Etan Wexler, Chris Wilson, Masafumi Yabe and Steve Zilles.
Appendix A: References
Normative references
[CSS21]
Bert Bos; et al. Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification. 8 September
2009. W3C Candidate Recommendation. (Work in progress.) URL:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-CSS2-20090908
[CSS3BG]
Bert Bos; Elika J. Etemad; Brad Kemper. CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3. 12 June
2010. W3C Working Draft. (Work in progress.) URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-css3-
background-20100612
[RFC2119]
S. Bradner. Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. Internet RFC 2119. URL:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
07/04/2011
[RFC4647]
A. Phillips; M. Davis. Matching of Language Tags. September 2006. Internet RFC 4647. URL:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4647.txt
[UAX11]
Asmus Freytag. East Asian Width. 23 March 2001. Unicode Standard Annex #11. URL:
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr11/tr11-8.html
[UAX14]
Asmus Freytag. Line Breaking Properties. 29 March 2005. Unicode Standard Annex #14. URL:
[UAX24]
Mark Davis. Script Names. 28 March 2005. Unicode Standard Annex #24. URL:
[UAX29]
Mark Davis. Text Boundaries. 25 March 2005. Unicode Standard Annex #29. URL:
[UNICODE]
The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard. 2003. Defined by: The Unicode Standard,
Version 4.0 (Boston, MA, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-18578-1), as updated from time to time by
the publication of new versions URL:
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/versions/enumeratedversions.html
Informative references
[CSS3FONT]
John Daggett. CSS Fonts Module Level 3. 18 June 2009. W3C Working Draft. (Work in progress.)
URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-css3-fonts-20090618
[CSS3UI]
Tantek Çelik. CSS3 Basic User Interface Module. 11 May 2004. W3C Candidate
Recommendation. (Work in progress.) URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-css3-ui-20040511
[JIS4051]
Formatting rules for Japanese documents ( の ).Japanese Standards
Association. 2004. JIS X 4051:2004. In Japanese
[JLREQ]
Kenzou Onozawa; et al. Requirements for Japanese Text Layout. 4 June 2009. W3C Note. URL:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-jlreq-20090604
[ZHMARK]
(Punctuation Mark Usage). 1995.
Appendix B: Property index
Property Values Initial Applies to Inh. Percentages Media
hanging- none | [ first || last none inline yes N/A visual

punctuation || [ allow-end | elements
force-end ] ]
hyphenate- auto | <string> auto all elements yes N/A visual

character <string>?
hyphenate- <integer> | auto auto all elements yes N/A visual

limit-after
hyphenate- <integer> | auto auto all elements yes N/A visual

limit-before
hyphenate- none | always | none block yes N/A visual
07/04/2011
limit-last column | page | containers

spread
hyphenate- no-limit | <integer> no-limit block yes N/A visual

limit-lines containers
hyphenate- none | <uri> [, none all elements yes N/A visual

resource <uri> ]*
hyphens none | manual | manual all elements yes N/A visual

auto | all
letter- <spacing-limit> normal all elements yes refers to width visual

spacing {1,3} of space
(U+0020)
glyph
line-break auto | loose | auto all elements yes N/A visual

normal | strict
text-align [ start | end | left | start block yes N/A visual

right | center | containers
justify | match-
parent ] || <string>
text-align- auto | start auto block yes N/A visual

first containers
text-align- auto | start | end | auto block yes N/A visual

last left | right | center | containers
justify
text- none | [ ideograph- none all elements yes N/A visual

autospace numeric ||
ideograph-alpha ||
punctuation ]
text- <text-decoration- none all elements no N/A visual

decoration line> || <text-
decoration-color> ||
<text-decoration-
style> || blink
text- <color> currentColor all elements no N/A visual

decoration-
color
text- none | [ underline || none all elements no (but N/A visual

decoration- overline || line- see
line through ] prose)
text- none | [ objects || objects all elements yes N/A visual

decoration- spaces || ink || all ]
skip
text- solid | double | solid all elements no N/A visual

decoration- dotted | dashed |
style wave
text- ‘<text-emphasis- see individual all elements yes N/A visual

emphasis style>’ || ‘<text- properties
emphasis-color>’
text- <color> currentcolor all elements yes N/A visual

emphasis-
color
07/04/2011
text- above right | below above right all elements yes N/A visual
emphasis- right
position
text- none | [ [ filled | none all elements yes N/A visual

emphasis- open ] || [ dot |
style circle | double-
circle | triangle |
sesame ] ] |
<string>
text-indent [ <length> | 0 block yes refers to width visual

<percentage> ] && containers of containing
[ hanging || each- block
line ]?
text-justify auto | none | inter- auto block yes N/A visual

word | inter- containers
ideograph | inter- and,
cluster | distribute | optionally,
kashida inline
elements
text-outline none | [ <color> none all elements yes N/A visual

<length>
<length>? |
<length>
<length>?
<color> ]
text-shadow none | none all elements yes N/A visual

[<shadow>, ] *
<shadow>
text- none | [ [ capitalize none all elements yes N/A visual

transform | uppercase |
lowercase ] ||
fullwidth || large-
kana ]
text-trim normal | force-start normal all elements yes N/A visual

|| [ keep-end |
force-end ] || no-
justify
text- auto | alphabetic | auto all elements yes N/A visual

underline- below left | below
position right
text-wrap normal | normal all elements yes N/A visual

unrestricted | none
| avoid
white-space normal | pre | not defined all elements yes N/A visual
nowrap | pre-wrap for shorthand
| pre-line properties
white- collapse | discard | collapse all elements yes N/A visual

space- [ [preserve |
collapsing preserve-breaks]
&& trim-inner ]
word-break normal | keep-all | normal all elements yes N/A visual

break-all | keep-
words
07/04/2011
word- <spacing-limit> normal all elements yes refers to width visual

spacing {1,3} of space
(U+0020)
glyph
word-wrap normal | break- normal all elements yes N/A visual

word
Appendix C: Default UA Stylesheet

This section is informative, and is to help UA developers to implement default stylesheet, but UA
developers are free to ignore or change.
/* make list items align together */

li { text-align: match-parent; }
/* disable inheritance of text-emphasis marks to ruby text:
emphasis marks should only apply to base text */
rt { text-emphasis: none; }
:root:lang(zh) {
/* default emphasis mark position is 'under' for Chinese */
text-emphasis-position: under;
}
If you find any issues, recommendations to add, or corrections, please send the information to www-
style@w3.org with [css3-text] in the subject line.
Index
alignment character, 8.1.
‘alphabetic’, 11.1.6.
‘always’, 6.4.
authoring tool, 2.
‘auto’, 8.2., 11.1.6.
‘below left’, 11.1.6.
‘below right’, 11.1.6.
block scripts, 1.1.
clustered scripts, 1.1.
collapsible, 4.2.
‘column’, 6.4.
connected scripts, 1.1.
cursive scripts, 1.1.
discrete scripts, 1.1.
each-line, 10.1.
expansion opportunities, 8.4.
fullwidth closing punctuation, 9.3.
fullwidth colon punctuation, 9.3.
fullwidth dot punctuation, 9.3.
fullwidth middle dot punctuation, 9.3.
fullwidth opening punctuation, 9.3.
grapheme cluster, 9.2.
07/04/2011
hanging, 10.1.
hanging-punctuation, 10.2.
hanging-punctuation:allow-end, 10.2.
hanging-punctuation:first, 10.2.
hanging-punctuation:force-end, 10.2.
hanging-punctuation:last, 10.2.
hyphenate-character, 6.2.
hyphenate-limit-after, 6.3.
hyphenate-limit-before, 6.3.
hyphenate-limit-last, 6.4.
hyphenate-limit-lines, 6.4.
hyphenate-resource, 6.5.2.
hyphens, 6.1.
Ideographic letters, 9.4.
letter-spacing, 9.2.
line-break, 5.1.
line-break:auto, 5.1.
line-break:loose, 5.1.
line-break:normal, 5.1.
line-break:strict, 5.1.
‘none’, 6.4.
Non-ideographic letters, 9.4.
Non-ideographic numerals, 9.4.
‘page’, 6.4.
<percentage>, 9.
renderer, 2.
<shadow>, 11.3.
<spacing-limit>, 9.
<spacing-limit>:<length>, 9.
<spacing-limit>:normal, 9.
‘spread’, 6.4.
‘start’, 8.2.
style sheet
as conformance class, 2.
text-align, 8.1.
text-align:center, 8.1.
text-align:end, 8.1.
text-align-first, 8.2.
text-align:justify, 8.1.
text-align-last, 8.3.
text-align:left, 8.1.
text-align:match-parent, 8.1.
text-align:right, 8.1.
text-align:start, 8.1.
text-align:<string>, 8.1.
text-autospace, 9.4.
text-autospace:ideograph-alpha, 9.4.
text-autospace:ideograph-numeric, 9.4.
text-autospace:none, 9.4.
text-autospace:punctuation, 9.4.
text-decoration, 11.1.4.
text-decoration-color, 11.1.2.
text-decoration-line, 11.1.1.
text-decoration-skip, 11.1.5.
text-decoration-skip:all, 11.1.5.
text-decoration-skip:ink, 11.1.5.
07/04/2011
text-decoration-skip:none, 11.1.5.
text-decoration-skip:objects, 11.1.5.
text-decoration-skip:spaces, 11.1.5.
text-decoration-style, 11.1.3.
text-emphasis, 11.2.3.
text-emphasis:above right, 11.2.4.
text-emphasis:below right, 11.2.4.
text-emphasis:circle, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis-color, 11.2.2.
text-emphasis:dot, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis:double-circle, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis:filled, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis:none, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis:open, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis-position, 11.2.4.
text-emphasis:sesame, 11.2.1., 11.2.1.
text-emphasis-style, 11.2.1.
text-emphasis:triangle, 11.2.1.
text-indent, 10.1.
text-justify, 8.4.
text-justify:auto, 8.4.
text-justify:distribute, 8.4.
text-justify:inter-cluster, 8.4.
text-justify:inter-ideographic, 8.4.
text-justify:inter-word, 8.4.
text-justify:kashida, 8.4.
text-justify:none, 8.4.
text-outline, 11.4.
text-shadow, 11.3.
text-transform, 3.1.
text-transform:capitalize, 3.1.
text-transform:fullwidth, 3.1.
text-transform:large-kana, 3.1.
text-transform:lowercase, 3.1.
text-transform:none, 3.1.
text-transform:uppercase, 3.1.
text-trim, 9.3.
text-trim:force-end, 9.3.
text-trim:force-start, 9.3.
text-trim:keep-end, 9.3.
text-trim:no-justify, 9.3.
text-trim:normal, 9.3.
text-underline-position, 11.1.6.
text-wrap, 7.1.
text-wrap:avoid, 7.1.
text-wrap:none, 7.1.
text-wrap:normal, 7.1.
text-wrap:unrestricted, 7.1.
white-space, 4.3.
white-space-collapsing, 4.1.
white-space-collapsing:collapse, 4.1.
white-space-collapsing:discard, 4.1.
white-space-collapsing:preserve, 4.1.
white-space-collapsing:preserve-breaks, 4.1.
white-space-collapsing:trim-inner, 4.1.
white-space:normal, 4.3.
07/04/2011
white-space:nowrap, 4.3.
white-space:pre, 4.3.
white-space:pre-line, 4.3.
white-space:pre-wrap, 4.3.
word-break, 5.2.
word-break:break-all, 5.2.
word-break:keep-all, 5.2.
word-break:keep-words, 5.2.
word-break:normal, 5.2.
word-spacing, 9.1.
word-wrap, 7.2.
word-wrap:break-word, 7.2.
word-wrap:normal, 7.2.
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CSS Text Level 3

W3C Working Draft 15 February 2011

Status of This Document

z the ‘text-outline’ property

9.1. Word Spacing: the ‘word-spacing’ property

1.1. Script Groups

Provide an appendix using Unicode script names.

This is an example of an informative example.

Note, this is an informative note.

Conformance to CSS Text Level 3 is defined for three classes:

2.1. Partial and Experimental Implementations

of a feature should support only a vendor-prefixed syntax for the property/value.

3.1. Transforming Text: the ‘text-transform’ property

abbr:lang(ja) { text-transform: fullwidth; }

4. White Space Processing

4.1. White Space Collapsing: the ‘white-space-collapsing’ property

Rename to white-space-trim or white-space-adjust? white-space-collapsing has an ‘ing’ and is

4.2. The White Space Processing Rules

z If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is set to ‘collapse’ or ‘preserve-breaks’, white space characters are

z If ‘white-space-collapsing’ is set to ‘preserve’, any sequence of spaces (U+0020) unbroken by

As each line is laid out,

1. A sequence of collapsible spaces (U+0020) at the beginning of a line is removed.

4.2.1. Example of bidirectionality with white space collapsing

4.2.2. Line Break Transformation Rules

4.2.3. Informative Summary of White Space Collapsing Effects

z Consecutive white space collapses into a single space.

The ‘white-space’ property is a shorthand for the ‘white-space-collapsing’ and ‘text-wrap’properties.

New Lines Spaces and Tabs Text Wrapping

5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries

Any guidance for appropriate references here would be much appreciated.

Information on line-breaking in the absence of dictionaries: for Thai

5.1. Line Breaking Strictness: the ‘line-break’ property

z Following breaks be forbidden in ‘strict’ line breaking and allowed in ‘normal’:

{ breaks before the KATAKANA-HIRAGANA PROLONGED SOUND MARK (U+30FC)

Additionally, if the language is known to be Chinese or Japanese, breaks before hyphens

{ breaks between inseparatable characters (U+2014, U+2025, U+2026, U+3033, U+3034,

U+2049, U+FF01, U+FF1F)

5.2. Word Breaking Rules: the ‘word-break’ property

Whether hyphenation is applied can controlled with the ‘hyphens’ property.

6.1. Hyphenation Control: the ‘hyphens’ property

6.2. Hyphens: the ‘hyphenate-character’ property

article { hyphenate-character: "\2010" }

6.3. Hyphenation Character Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-before’ and

Applies all elements

6.4. Hyphenation Line Limits: the ‘hyphenate-limit-lines’ and ‘hyphenate-

A paragraph may be formatted like this when ‘hyphenate-limit-last: none’ is set:

With ‘hyphenate-limit-last: always’ one would get:

6.5. Hyphenation Resources

also trigger other typographic improvements).

(Could also argue that :lang() should use RFC4647.)

Feedback on this issue is requested.

The ‘@hyphenate-resource’ rule consists of the ‘@hyphenate-resource’ at-keyword followed by

Use a format specifier, like @font-face? What is the format?

UAs are not required to support this at-rule.

6.5.2. The ‘hyphenate-resource’ property

:lang(dk) { hyphenate-resource: url("hyph_da_DK.dic"), url("hyph_da_NO.dic") }

UAs are not required to support this property.

Use a format specifier, like @font-face? What is the format?

7.1. Text Wrap Settings: the ‘text-wrap’ property

7.1.1. Example of using ‘text-wrap: avoid’ in presenting a footer

Given the rules

Middle Dot—Opening ・+（・(