text-decoration

The text-decoration shorthand CSS property sets the appearance of decorative lines on text. It is a shorthand for text-decoration-line, text-decoration-color, text-decoration-style, and the newer text-decoration-thickness property.

Text decorations are drawn across descendant text elements. This means that if an element specifies a text decoration, then a child element can't remove the decoration. For example, in the markup <p>This text has <em>some emphasized words</em> in it.</p>, the style rule p { text-decoration: underline; } would cause the entire paragraph to be underlined. The style rule em { text-decoration: none; } would not cause any change; the entire paragraph would still be underlined. However, the rule em { text-decoration: overline; } would cause a second decoration to appear on "some emphasized words".

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

Syntax

text-decoration: underline;
text-decoration: overline red;
text-decoration: none;

/* Global values */
text-decoration: inherit;
text-decoration: initial;
text-decoration: revert;
text-decoration: unset;

The text-decoration property is specified as one or more space-separated values representing the various longhand text-decoration properties.

Values

text-decoration-line: Sets the kind of decoration used, such as underline or line-through.
text-decoration-color: Sets the color of the decoration.
text-decoration-style: Sets the style of the line used for the decoration, such as solid, wavy, or dashed.
text-decoration-thickness: Sets the thickness of the line used for the decoration.

Formal definition

Initial value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-decoration-color`: `currentcolor` `text-decoration-style`: `solid` `text-decoration-line`: `none`
Applies to	all elements. It also applies to `::first-letter` and `::first-line`.
Inherited	no
Computed value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-decoration-line`: as specified `text-decoration-style`: as specified `text-decoration-color`: computed color `text-decoration-thickness`: as specified
Animation type	as each of the properties of the shorthand: `text-decoration-color`: a color `text-decoration-style`: discrete `text-decoration-line`: discrete `text-decoration-thickness`: by computed value type

Formal syntax

<'text-decoration-line'> || <'text-decoration-style'> || <'text-decoration-color'> || <'text-decoration-thickness'>

Examples

Demonstration of text-decoration values

.under {
  text-decoration: underline red;
}

.over {
  text-decoration: wavy overline lime;
}

.line {
  text-decoration: line-through;
}

.plain {
  text-decoration: none;
}

.underover {
  text-decoration: dashed underline overline;
}

.thick {
  text-decoration: solid underline purple 4px;
}

.blink {
  text-decoration: blink;
}

<p class="under">This text has a line underneath it.</p>
<p class="over">This text has a line over it.</p>
<p class="line">This text has a line going through it.</p>
<p>This <a class="plain" href="#">link will not be underlined</a>,
    as links generally are by default. Be careful when removing
    the text decoration on anchors since users often depend on
    the underline to denote hyperlinks.</p>
<p class="underover">This text has lines above <em>and</em> below it.</p>
<p class="thick">This text has a really thick purple underline in supporting browsers.</p>
<p class="blink">This text might blink for you,
    depending on the browser you use.</p>

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3 # text-decoration-property

Browser compatibility

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