CSS text-align-all

The text-align-all property is longhand for the text-align property.

As of this writing (August 2020), the text-align-all property has been proposed as part of the CSS Text Module Level 3 working draft.

Here's an explanation from the CSSWG:

There's a proposal for ‘text-align’ to become a shorthand for ‘text-align-last’ and ‘text-align-all’. This has the advantage that ‘text-align-last’ can be set in a single declaration with ‘text-align’, e.g. ‘text-align: justify-all’ (justify align all lines) or ‘text-align: justify center’ (justify all lines except center last line). It has the disadvantage of creating the ‘text-align-all’ property. There are also some cascading considerations: if ‘text-align-last’ is part of the shorthand, then any declaration of ‘text-align’ will reset it; it's unclear if this is an advantage or a disadvantage.

Also, according to the draft specification, authors should use text-align instead of text-align-all.

The definition of text-align has been updated in the working draft, so that it's now a shorthand property for text-align-last and text-align-all

Therefore, this article is here to provide context, and for completeness, rather than working examples — at least for now. As with all working drafts, the specifications will change, and this property could be changed or dropped at any moment.

Syntax

Possible Values

start: Specifies that inline-level content is aligned to the start edge of the line box.
end: Specifies that inline-level content is aligned to the end edge of the line box.
left: Specifies that inline-level content is aligned to the line left edge of the line box. (In vertical writing modes, this will be either the physical top or bottom, depending on the value of the text-orientation property.)
right: Specifies that inline-level content is aligned to the line right edge of the line box. (In vertical writing modes, this will be either the physical top or bottom, depending on the value of the text-orientation property.)
center: Specifies that inline-level content is centered within the line box.
justify: Specifies that text is justified according to the method specified by the text-justify property, in order to exactly fill the line box.
match-parent: This value behaves the same as inherit (computes to its parent's computed value) except that an inherited start or end keyword is interpreted against its parent's direction value and results in a computed value of either left or right.

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

Initial Value: start
Applies To: Block containers.
Inherited?: Yes
Animatable: Discrete

CSS Specifications

The text-align-all property is defined in CSS Text Module Level 3 (W3C Working Draft, 29 April 2020).

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.