CSS speak-as

The CSS speak-as property is used in speech media to determine how certain text is spoken.

The speak-as property allows you to specify whether text should be spoken or spelled out, whether or not numbers should be spoken one digit at a time, whether punctuation is spoken literally or rendered naturally, etc.

For example, you could specify whether:

Syntax

Possible Values

normal
Specifies that language-dependent pronunciation rules are used for rendering the element's content. For example, punctuation is not spoken out, but rendered naturally as appropriate pauses.
spell-out
Spells the text, one letter at a time. This is useful for acronyms and abbreviations. For example, "Ajax" is spelled out as "A J A X".
digits
Speak the numeral as individual digits. For example, 645 is spoken "Six Four Five".
literal-punctuation
Specifies that punctuation such as semicolons, braces, are spoken literally (rather than rendered naturally as appropriate pauses).
no-punctuation
Punctuation is not rendered at all. It's neither spoken nor rendered as pauses.

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.

General Information

Initial Value
normal
Applies To
All elements
Inherited?
Yes
Media
speech

Example Code

Official Specifications

Vendor Prefixes

For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.

This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.

The major browser manufacturers generally strive to adhere to the W3C specifications, and when they support a non-prefixed property, they typically remove the prefixed version. Also, W3C advises vendors to remove their prefixes for properties that reach Candidate Recommendation status.

Many developers use Autoprefixer, which is a postprocessor for CSS. Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to your CSS so that you don't need to. It also removes old, unnecessary prefixes from your CSS.

You can also use Autoprefixer with preprocessors such as Less and Sass.