CSS text-orientation

The CSS text-orientation property specifies the orientation of text within a line.

You can use text-orientation in conjunction with the writing-mode property to specify the orientation that you wish the text to use.

The property only has an effect in vertical typographic modes.

Syntax

Which means that it can be any of those three values.

In other words, it can be any of the following:

Possible Values

Below is an explanation of the values.

mixed

In vertical writing modes, typographic character units from horizontal-only scripts are typeset sideways. Typographic character units from vertical scripts are typeset with their intrinsic orientation.

upright

In vertical writing modes, typographic character units from horizontal-only scripts are typeset upright (that is, in their standard horizontal orientation). Typographic character units from vertical scripts are typeset with their intrinsic orientation and shaped normally.

sideways

In vertical writing modes, this causes all text to be typeset sideways, as if in a horizontal layout, but rotated 90° clockwise.

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

CSS Specifications

The text-orientation property is defined in CSS Writing Modes Level 3 (W3C Recommendation, 10 December 2019)

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.