CSS text-justify

The text-justify property selects the justification method used when a line's alignment is set to justify.

The text-justify property applies to inlines, but is inherited from block containers to the root inline box containing their inline-level contents.

The text-justify property is designed to work on text that has a text-align value of justify.

Syntax

Possible Values

auto: The UA determines the justification algorithm to follow, based on a balance between performance and adequate presentation quality.
none: Justification is disabled: there are no justification opportunities within the text.
inter-word: Justification adjusts spacing at word separators only (effectively varying the used word-spacing on the line). This behavior is typical for languages that separate words using spaces, like English or Korean.
inter-character: Justification adjusts spacing between each pair of adjacent typographic character units (effectively varying the used letter-spacing on the line). This value is sometimes used in East Asian systems such as Japanese.

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: auto
Applies To: Inline boxes.
Inherited?: Yes
Animatable: Discrete (see example)

Example Code

Basic CSS

CSS Specifications

The text-justify property is defined in CSS Text Module Level 3 (W3C Last Call Working Draft 10 October 2013).

Browser Support

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

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.