visibility

The visibility attribute lets you control the visibility of graphical elements. With a value of hidden or collapse the current graphics element is invisible.

Note: If the visibility attribute is set to hidden on a text element, then the text is invisible but still takes up space in text layout calculations.

Depending on the value of attribute pointer-events, graphics elements which have their visibility attribute set to hidden still might receive events.

Note: As a presentation attribute, visibility can be used as a CSS property. See the css visibility property for more information.

You can use this attribute with the following SVG elements:

Example

<svg viewBox="0 0 220 120" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <rect x="10" y="10" width="200" height="100" stroke="black"
      stroke-width="5" fill="transparent" />
  <g stroke="seagreen" stroke-width="5" fill="skyblue">
    <rect x="20" y="20" width="80" height="80" visibility="visible" />
    <rect x="120" y="20" width="80" height="80" visibility="hidden"/>
  </g>
</svg>

Usage notes

Value visible | hidden | collapse
Default value visible
Animatable Yes
visible

This value indicates that the element will be painted.

hidden

This value indicates that the element will not be painted. Though it is still part of the rendering tree, i.e. it may receive pointer events depending on the pointer-events attribute, may receive focus depending on the tabindex attribute, contributes to bounding box calculations and clipping paths, and does affect text layout.

collapse

This value is equal to hidden.

Example

The following example toggles the CSS visibility of the SVG image path.

HTML

<button id="nav-toggle-button" >
  <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="button-icon">
    <path d="M16.59 8.59L12 13.17 7.41 8.59 6 10l6 6 6-6z" />
    <path d="M12 8l-6 6 1.41 1.41L12 10.83l4.59 4.58L18 14z" class="invisible" />
    <path d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none" />
  </svg>
  <span>
    click me
  </span>
</button>  

CSS

svg {
  display: inline !important;
}
span {
  vertical-align: 50%;
}
button {
  line-height: 1em;
}
.invisible {
  visibility: hidden;
}

JavaScript

document.querySelector("button").addEventListener("click", function (evt) {
  this.querySelector("svg > path:nth-of-type(1)").classList.toggle("invisible");
  this.querySelector("svg > path:nth-of-type(2)").classList.toggle("invisible");
}); 

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1)
The definition of 'visibility' in that specification.
Recommendation CSS definition of the property
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
The definition of 'visibility' in that specification.
Candidate Recommendation Mainly refers to CSS 2.1
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition)
The definition of 'visibility' in that specification.
Recommendation Initial definition

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also