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text formatting
This text is styled with some of the text formatting properties. The heading uses the text-align, text-transform, and color properties. The paragraph is indented, aligned, and the space between characters is specified. The underline is removed from this colored "" link.

Text Color
The color property is used to set the color of the text.

With CSS, a color is most often specified by:

a color name - like "red"
a HEX value - like "#ff0000"
an RGB value - like "rgb(255,0,0)"
Look at CSS Color Values for a complete list of possible color values.

The default text color for a page is defined in the body selector.

Example
body {
    color: blue;
}

h1 {
    color: green;
}
»
Note: For W3C compliant CSS: If you define the color property, you must also define the background-color.

Text Alignment
The text-align property is used to set the horizontal alignment of a text.

A text can be left or right aligned, centered, or justified.

The following example shows center aligned, and left and right aligned text (left alignment is default if text direction is left-to-right, and right alignment is default if text direction is right-to-left):

Example
h1 {
    text-align: center;
}

h2 {
    text-align: left;
}

h3 {
    text-align: right;
}
»
When the text-align property is set to "justify", each line is stretched so that every line has equal width, and the left and right margins are straight (like in magazines and newspapers):

Example
div {
    text-align: justify;
}
»
Text Decoration
The text-decoration property is used to set or remove decorations from text.

The value text-decoration: none; is often used to remove underlines from links:

Example
a {
    text-decoration: none;
}
»
The other text-decoration values are used to decorate text:

Example
h1 {
    text-decoration: overline;
}

h2 {
    text-decoration: line-through;
}

h3 {
    text-decoration: underline;
}
»
Note: It is not recommended to underline text that is not a link, as this often confuses the reader.

Text Transformation
The text-transform property is used to specify uppercase and lowercase letters in a text.

It can be used to turn everything into uppercase or lowercase letters, or capitalize the first letter of each word:

Example
p.uppercase {
    text-transform: uppercase;
}

p.lowercase {
    text-transform: lowercase;
}

p.capitalize {
    text-transform: capitalize;
}
»
Text Indentation
The text-indent property is used to specify the indentation of the first line of a text:

Example
p {
    text-indent: 50px;
}
»
Letter Spacing
The letter-spacing property is used to specify the space between the characters in a text.

The following example demonstrates how to increase or decrease the space between characters:

Example
h1 {
    letter-spacing: 3px;
}

h2 {
    letter-spacing: -3px;
}
»
Line Height
The line-height property is used to specify the space between lines:

Example
p.small {
    line-height: 0.8;
}

p.big {
    line-height: 1.8;
}
»
Text Direction
The direction property is used to change the text direction of an element:

Example
div {
    direction: rtl;
}
»
Word Spacing
The word-spacing property is used to specify the space between the words in a text.

The following example demonstrates how to increase or decrease the space between words:

Example
h1 {
    word-spacing: 10px;
}

h2 {
    word-spacing: -5px;
}
»
Text Shadow
The text-shadow property adds shadow to text.

The following example specifies the position of the horizontal shadow (3px), the position of the vertical shadow (2px) and the color of the shadow (red):

Example
h1 {
    text-shadow: 3px 2px red;
}
»
More Examples
Disable text wrapping inside an element
This example demonstrates how to disable text wrapping inside an element.

Vertical alignment of an image
This example demonstrates how to set the vertical align of an image in a text.

Test Yourself with Exercises!
Exercise 1 »  Exercise 2 »  Exercise 3 »  Exercise 4 »  Exercise 5 »

All CSS Text Properties
Property Description
color Sets the color of text
direction Specifies the text direction/writing direction
letter-spacing Increases or decreases the space between characters in a text
line-height Sets the line height
text-align Specifies the horizontal alignment of text
text-decoration Specifies the decoration added to text
text-indent Specifies the indentation of the first line in a text-block
text-shadow Specifies the shadow effect added to text
text-transform Controls the capitalization of text
text-overflow Specifies how overflowed content that is not displayed should be signaled to the user
unicode-bidi Used together with the direction property to set or return whether the text should be overridden to support multiple languages in the same document
vertical-align Sets the vertical alignment of an element
white-space Specifies how white-space inside an element is handled
word-spacing Increases or decreases the space between words in a text

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