The text-transform CSS property specifies how to capitalize an element's text. It can be used to make text appear in all-uppercase or all-lowercase, or with each word capitalized. It also can help improve legibility for ruby.

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The text-transform property takes into account language-specific case mapping rules such as the following:

In Turkic languages, like Turkish ( tr ), Azerbaijani ( az ), Crimean Tatar ( crh ), Volga Tatar ( tt ), and Bashkir ( ba ), there are two kinds of i , with and without the dot, and two case pairings: i / İ and ı / I .

In German ( de ), the ß becomes SS in uppercase.

In Dutch ( nl ), the ij digraph becomes IJ , even with text-transform: capitalize , which only puts the first letter of a word in uppercase.

In Greek ( el ), vowels lose their accent when the whole word is in uppercase ( ά / Α ), except for the disjunctive eta ( ή / Ή ). Also, diphthongs with an accent on the first vowel lose the accent and gain a diaeresis on the second vowel ( άι / ΑΪ ).

In Greek ( el ), the lowercase sigma character has two forms: σ and ς . ς is used only when sigma terminates a word. When applying text-transform: lowercase to an uppercase sigma ( Σ ), the browser needs to choose the right lowercase form based on context.

in Irish ( ga ), certain prefixed letters remain in lowercase when the base initial is capitalized, so for example text-transform: uppercase will change ar aon tslí to AR AON tSLÍ and not, as one might expect, AR AON TSLÍ (Firefox only). In some cases, a hyphen is also removed upon uppercasing: an t-uisce transforms to AN tUISCE (and the hyphen is correctly reinserted by text-transform: lowercase ).

The language is defined by the lang HTML attribute or the xml:lang XML attribute.

Note: Support for language-specific cases varies between browsers, so check the browser compatibility table.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */ text-transform: none; text-transform: capitalize; text-transform: uppercase; text-transform: lowercase; text-transform: full-width; text-transform: full-size-kana; /* Global values */ text-transform: inherit; text-transform: initial; text-transform: unset;

capitalize Is a keyword that converts the first letter of each word to uppercase. Other characters remain unchanged (they retain their original case as written in the element's text). A letter is defined as a character that is part of Unicode's Letter or Number general categories ; thus, any punctuation marks or symbols at the beginning of a word are ignored. Authors should not expect capitalize to follow language-specific title casing conventions (such as skipping articles in English). The capitalize keyword was under-specified in CSS 1 and CSS 2.1. This resulted in differences between browsers in the way the first letter was calculated (Firefox considered - and _ as letters, but other browsers did not. Both Webkit and Gecko incorrectly considered letter-based symbols like ⓐ to be real letters. Internet Explorer 9 was the closest to the CSS 2 definition, but with some weird cases.) By precisely defining the correct behavior, CSS Text Level 3 cleans this mess up. The capitalize line in the browser compatibility table contains the version the different engines started to support this now precisely-defined behavior. uppercase Is a keyword that converts all characters to uppercase. lowercase Is a keyword that converts all characters to lowercase. none Is a keyword that prevents the case of all characters from being changed. full-width Is a keyword that forces the writing of a character — mainly ideograms and Latin scripts — inside a square, allowing them to be aligned in the usual East Asian scripts (like Chinese or Japanese). full-size-kana Generally used for <ruby> annotation text, the keyword converts all small Kana characters to the equivalent full-size Kana, to compensate for legibility issues at the small font sizes typically used in ruby.

Accessibility concerns

Large sections of text set with a text-transform value of uppercase may be difficult for people with cognitive concerns such as Dyslexia to read.

Formal definition

Initial value none Applies to all elements. It also applies to ::first-letter and ::first-line . Inherited yes Computed value as specified Animation type discrete

Formal syntax

Examples

none

<p>Initial String <strong>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: none <strong><span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: none; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates no text transformation.

capitalize (General)

<p>Initial String <strong>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: capitalize <strong><span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: capitalize; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates text capitalization.

capitalize (Punctuation)

<p>Initial String <strong>(this) “is” [a] –short– -test- «for» *the* _css_ ¿capitalize? ?¡transform!</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: capitalize <strong><span>(this) “is” [a] –short– -test- «for» *the* _css_ ¿capitalize? ?¡transform!</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: capitalize; } strong { float: right; }

This demostrates how initial punctuations of a word are ignored. The keyword target the first letter, that is the first Unicode character part of the Letter or Number general category.

capitalize (Symbols)

<p>Initial String <strong>ⓐⓑⓒ (ⓓⓔⓕ) —ⓖⓗⓘ— ⓙkl</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: capitalize <strong><span>ⓐⓑⓒ (ⓓⓔⓕ) —ⓖⓗⓘ— ⓙkl</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: capitalize; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates how initial symbols are ignored. The keyword target the first letter, that is the first Unicode character part of the Letter or Number general category.

capitalize (Dutch ij digraph)

<p>Initial String <strong lang="nl">The Dutch word: " ijsland " starts with a digraph.</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: capitalize <strong><span lang="nl">The Dutch word: " ijsland " starts with a digraph.</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: capitalize; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates how the Dutch ij digraph must be handled like one single letter.

uppercase (General)

<p>Initial String <strong>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: uppercase <strong><span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: uppercase; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates transforming the text to uppercase.

uppercase (Greek Vowels)

<p>Initial String <strong>Θα πάμε στο "Θεϊκό φαΐ" ή στη "Νεράιδα"</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: uppercase <strong><span>Θα πάμε στο "Θεϊκό φαΐ" ή στη "Νεράιδα"</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: uppercase; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates how Greek vowels except disjunctive eta should have no accent, and the accent on the first vowel of a vowel pair becomes a diaeresis on the second vowel.

lowercase (General)

<p>Initial String <strong>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: lowercase <strong><span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, ...</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: lowercase; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates transforming the text to lowercase.

lowercase (Greek Σ)

<p>Initial String <strong>Σ IS A greek LETTER that appears SEVERAL TIMES IN ΟΔΥΣΣΕΥΣ.</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: lowercase <strong><span>Σ IS A greek LETTER that appears SEVERAL TIMES IN ΟΔΥΣΣΕΥΣ.</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: lowercase; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates how the Greek character sigma ( Σ ) is transformed into the regular lowercase sigma ( σ ) or the word-final variant ( ς ), according the context.

lowercase (Lithuanian)

<p>Initial String <strong>Ĩ is a Lithuanian LETTER as is J́</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: lowercase <strong><span lang="lt">Ĩ is a Lithuanian LETTER as is J́</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: lowercase; } strong { float: right; }

This demonstrates how the Lithuanian letters Ĩ and J́ retain their dot when transformed to lowercase.

full-width (General)

<p>Initial String <strong>0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!"#$%&()*+,-./:;<=>?@{|}~</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: full-width <strong><span>0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!"#$%&()*+,-./:;<=>?@{|}~</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: full-width; } strong { width: 100%; float: right; }

Some characters exists in two formats, normal width and a full-width, with different Unicode code points. The full-width version is used to mix them smoothly with Asian ideographic characters.

full-width (Japanese half-width katakana)

<p>Initial String <strong>ｳｪﾌﾞﾌﾟﾛｸﾞﾗﾐﾝｸﾞの勉強</strong> </p> <p>text-transform: full-width <strong><span>ｳｪﾌﾞﾌﾟﾛｸﾞﾗﾐﾝｸﾞの勉強</span></strong> </p>

span { text-transform: full-width; } strong { width: 100%; float: right; }

The Japanese half-width katakana was used to represent katakana in 8-bit character codes. Unlike regular (full-width) katakana characters, a letter with dakuten (voiced sound mark) is represented as two code points, the body of letter and dakuten. The full-width combines these into a single code point when converting these characters into full-width.

full-size-kana

<p>ァィゥェ ォヵㇰヶ ㇱㇲッㇳ ㇴㇵㇶㇷ ㇸㇹㇺャ ュョㇻㇼ ㇽㇾㇿヮ</p> <p>ァィゥェ ォヵㇰヶ ㇱㇲッㇳ ㇴㇵㇶㇷ ㇸㇹㇺャ ュョㇻㇼ ㇽㇾㇿヮ</p> </p>

p:nth-of-type(2) { text-transform: full-size-kana; }

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub Desktop Mobile Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet text-transform Chrome Full support 1 Notes Full support 1 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (nor for the one-colon syntax). See Chromium bug 129669. Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support 1 IE Full support 4 Opera Full support 7 Notes Full support 7 Notes Notes Since Opera 15, the text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (nor for the one-colon syntax). See Chromium bug 129669. Safari Full support 1 Notes Full support 1 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (also not for the old one-colon syntax). See WebKit bug 3409. WebView Android Full support 1 Notes Full support 1 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (nor for the one-colon syntax). See Chromium bug 129669. Chrome Android Full support 18 Notes Full support 18 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (nor for the one-colon syntax). See Chromium bug 129669. Firefox Android Full support 4 Opera Android Full support 11 Safari iOS Full support 1 Notes Full support 1 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (also not for the old one-colon syntax). See WebKit bug 3409. Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 Notes Full support 1.0 Notes Notes The text-transform property does not work for ::first-line pseudo-elements (nor for the one-colon syntax). See Chromium bug 129669. capitalize Chrome Full support 1 Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support 1 Notes Full support 1 Notes Notes Before Firefox 14, some punctuation characters could interfere with correct capitalization. See bug 731536. IE Full support 4 Opera Full support 7 Safari Full support 1 WebView Android Full support 1 Chrome Android Full support 18 Firefox Android Full support 4 Notes Full support 4 Notes Notes Before Firefox 14, some punctuation characters could interfere with correct capitalization. See bug 731536. Opera Android Full support 11 Safari iOS Full support 1 Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 Dutch IJ digraph Chrome No support No Edge No support No Firefox Full support 14 IE No support No Opera No support No Safari No support No WebView Android No support No Chrome Android No support No Firefox Android Full support 14 Opera Android No support No Safari iOS No support No Samsung Internet Android No support No full-size-kana Chrome No support No Edge No support No Firefox Full support 64 IE No support No Opera No support No Safari No support No WebView Android No support No Chrome Android No support No Firefox Android Full support 64 Opera Android No support No Safari iOS No support No Samsung Internet Android No support No full-width Chrome No support No Edge No support No Firefox Full support 19 IE No support No Opera No support No Safari No support No WebView Android No support No Chrome Android No support No Firefox Android Full support 19 Opera Android No support No Safari iOS No support No Samsung Internet Android No support No Greek accented letters Chrome Full support 34 Edge Full support 79 Firefox Full support 15 IE No support No Opera Full support 21 Safari No support No WebView Android Full support 4.4 Chrome Android Full support 34 Firefox Android Full support 15 Opera Android Full support 21 Safari iOS No support No Samsung Internet Android Full support 2.0 Σ → σ or word-final ς Chrome Full support 30 Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support 14 IE Full support 4 Opera Full support 17 Safari Full support 6 WebView Android Full support 4.4 Chrome Android Full support 30 Firefox Android Full support 14 Opera Android Full support 18 Safari iOS Full support 6 Samsung Internet Android Full support 2.0 i → İ and ı → I Chrome Full support 31 Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support 14 IE Full support 4 Opera Full support 18 Safari Full support 8 WebView Android Full support ≤37 Chrome Android Full support 31 Firefox Android Full support 14 Opera Android Full support 18 Safari iOS Full support 8 Samsung Internet Android Full support 2.0 ß → SS Chrome Full support 1 Edge Full support 18 Firefox Full support 1 IE No support No Opera Full support 7 Safari Full support 1 WebView Android Full support 1 Chrome Android Full support 18 Firefox Android Full support 4 Opera Android Full support 11 Safari iOS Full support 1 Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 Legend Full support Full support No support No support See implementation notes. See implementation notes.

See also