CSS hanging-punctuation

The CSS hanging-punctuation property determines whether punctuation marks hang outside the line box (or in the indent) at the start or at the end of a line of text.

No more than one punctuation character may hang at each edge of the line.

Also known as exdentation, or optical alignment, hanging punctuation can make the text more readable as each line, lines up with the previous line regardless of whether it has punctuation marks or not.

Syntax

Possible Values

Here are the possible values:

none

Punctuation marks don't hang.

first

An opening bracket or quote at the start of the first formatted line of an element hangs.

last

A closing bracket or quote at the end of the last formatted line of an element hangs.

force-end

A stop or comma at the end of a line hangs.

allow-end

A stop or comma at the end of a line hangs if it does not otherwise fit prior to justification.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial

Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.

inherit

Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.

unset

This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

Basic Property Information

Example Code

CSS Specifications

• The hanging-punctuation property is defined in CSS Text Module Level 3.

Browser Support

Browser support for CSS properties can vary, particularly for newer or experimental features. Check current browser compatibility before using a property in production, especially when supporting older browsers.

The following table provided by Caniuse.com shows the level of browser support for this feature.

Initial Value

CSS properties have an initial value that applies when the property has not been explicitly set. The initial value is different from the value inherited from a parent element and may vary between properties.

Inheritance

Some CSS properties inherit their computed value from their parent element by default, while others do not. The inherit, initial, unset, and revert keywords can also be used to control how a property gets its value.

Vendor Prefixes

Most modern CSS properties use the standard, unprefixed syntax. Vendor-prefixed properties such as -webkit- are mainly relevant to older browser versions or specific features and should only be used when required by your browser support targets.