How to outline text in html / css?
There are several ways to outline text in HTML / CSS, each with its own set of benefits and limitations. Here are three common methods:
Method 1: Using the «text-shadow» property
For example, if you want to outline all text within a «p» tag, you would create a class called «outline» and apply it to the «p» tag.
p class="outline">This text will have an outlinep>This will create a black outline around the text. The text-shadow property takes four values: the horizontal offset, the vertical offset, the blur radius, and the color. In this case, we’re applying a 1px offset in all four directions, with a 0px blur radius and a black color.
Method 2: Using the «border» property
For example, if you want to outline all text within a «p» tag, you would create a class called «outline» and apply it to the «p» tag.
p class="outline">This text will have an outlinep>This will create a black outline around the text. The border property takes three values: the width, the style, and the color. In this case, we’re applying a 2px solid black border and a 3px padding.
Method 3: Using the «box-shadow» property
For example, if you want to outline all text within a «p» tag, you would create a class called «outline» and apply it to the «p» tag.
p class="outline">This text will have an outlinep>This will create a black outline around the text. The box-shadow property takes four values: the horizontal offset, the vertical offset, the blur radius and the spread distance, and the color. In this case, we’re applying a 0px offset in all four directions, a 0px blur radius and a 0 spread distance and a black color.
Keep in mind that these are just a few examples of how to outline text in HTML / CSS. Depending on your specific use case, you may find that one method works better than another. Additionally, there are other properties and techniques you can use to create more advanced text effects, such as text-stroke and gradient text.
To continue with the discussion on outlining text in HTML / CSS, let’s take a look at some additional properties and techniques that can be used to create more advanced text effects.
One such property is the «text-stroke» property, which allows you to add a stroke or outline around text in a similar way to the «text-shadow» property. The «text-stroke» property takes two values: the width of the stroke, and the color of the stroke. Here’s an example of how to use the «text-stroke» property to add a 2px red outline to text:
Another technique that can be used to create advanced text effects is gradient text. This involves applying a gradient fill to the text, rather than a solid color. There are several ways to create gradient text, but one common method is to use the «background-clip» and «background-image» properties to apply a gradient background to the text. Here’s an example of how to create a linear gradient text effect:
Another technique is using the CSS filter property to apply effects to text, such as drop-shadow, blur or brightness.
These are just a few examples of the properties and techniques that can be used to create advanced text effects in HTML / CSS. With the growing capabilities of web browsers, the possibilities for styling text are almost endless. It’s important to note that not all of these techniques are supported in all browsers, so it’s important to check browser compatibility and provide fallbacks when necessary.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are several methods and techniques for outlining text in HTML / CSS. The most common methods are using the «text-shadow», «border» and «box-shadow» properties. Each of these methods has its own set of benefits and limitations, so it’s important to choose the one that best suits your specific use case. Additionally, there are other properties and techniques that can be used to create more advanced text effects, such as text-stroke, gradient text, and CSS filter properties. Keep in mind that not all of these techniques are supported in all browsers, so it’s important to check browser compatibility and provide fallbacks when necessary. As always, practice makes perfect, so it’s important to keep experimenting with different techniques to see what works best for your project.
Adding Outline to Text Using CSS
With CSS, you can design your text in many possible ways. You can add different colors, shadows, underlines or style it in a number of ways. In this post, you will be looking at different methods by which outline, or text stroke, can be added to text.
We will be covering two methods by which you can add outlines to your text. There is a third one also, but currently it is not supported by any browser.
Using text-stroke property
The text-stroke property adds stroke to your text. It can be used to change the width and color of the text. This property is only supported by WebKit-based browsers and that too on using the -webkit- prefix.
id="example1">This text has stroke #example1 color: white; font-size: 40px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 2px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: black; >
-webkit-text-stroke-width and -webkit-text-stroke-color specifies the width and the color of the stroke respectively. These are the two longhand properties for the shorthand property -webkit-text-stroke which specifies both the stroke color and the width at one go. Thus, the above CSS code is equivalent to the one shown below.
#example2 color: white; font-size: 40px; -webkit-text-stroke: 2px black; >
You won’t be able to see the above text if your browser does not support the text-stroke property, because it has a white font color. In order to make the text visible in all these browsers, give it any text color other than the background color so that it becomes visible in all the browsers which do not support this property and use the -webkit-text-fill-color property to override the text color in all WebKit-based browsers.
id="example3">The text stroke will not be visible for some browsers #example3 color: black; font-size: 34px; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px black; -webkit-text-fill-color: white; >
The text stroke will not be visible for some browsers
The above text will appear black in all the browsers which do not support the text-transform property. For browsers which support this property, -webkit-text-fill-color overrode the black text color to make it white.
Now, let’s come to another method which can be used to add oulines to your text.
Using text-shadow property
Since text-stroke doesn’t have much browser support, you can use the text-shadow property which has comparatively large support from browsers.
id="example4">Stroke using text shadow #example4 color: white; font-size: 40px; text-shadow: -1px 1px 0 #000, 1px 1px 0 #000, 1px -1px 0 #000; -1px -1px 0 #000; >
In the above demo, four text shadows (top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left and top-left) are given setting the blur radius 0. This effect is similar to that generated by the first method.
This method has an added advantage. We can adjust the horizontal and vertical shadows according to what suits the text. Adding a little blur radius will also give it a better look as in the following demo.
id="example5">Stroke with blur radius #example5 color: white; font-size: 40px; text-shadow: -1px 1px 2px #000, 1px 1px 2px #000, 1px -1px 0 #000, -1px -1px 0 #000; >
A drawback of using text shadows is that if you give the shadow length greater than 1px, then you may see discontinuous stroke.
More with text stroke
You can combine the text-stroke and the text-shadow properties to give another great effect.
#example6 color: white; font-size: 40px; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px #23430C; text-shadow: -1px 1px 2px #23430C, 1px 1px 2px #23430C, 1px -1px 0 #23430C, -1px -1px 0 #23430C; >
id="example7">Text Stroke id="example8">Text Stroke
#example7 color: white; font-size: 47px; -webkit-text-stroke: 3px #E21F03; > #example8 color: white; font-size: 47px; -webkit-text-stroke: 5px #E21F03; >
The above demo gives the effect of a thin white colored line following the path of the text for the first text and a curvy bold look for the second text. This can be achieved by just increasing the stroke width.
Have a look at some more text stroke effects
id="example9">Text Stroke id="example10">Text Stroke id="example11">Text Stroke
#example9 color: white; font-size: 47px; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px #F8F8F8; text-shadow: 0px 1px 4px #23430C; > #example10 color: white; font-size: 47px; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px #F8F8F8; text-shadow: 0px 2px 4px blue; > #example11 color: #333; background-color: black; font-size: 56px; -webkit-text-stroke: 1px #282828; text-shadow: 0px 4px 4px #282828; >
These were some cool effects which you can add to your text using the above properties. You can come up with more beautiful text stroke effects by combining and altering the values of different properties like color, blur radius, stroke width and so on.
Browser Support
As discussed earlier, the text-stroke property is supported with the -webkit- prefix by the WebKit-based browsers. This is supported by Chrome, Safari, Opera and Android. On the other hand, text-shadow is supported by almost all the browsers.
There is also a third property text-outline for adding outline to text, but currently it is not supported by any browser.
Conclusion
A slight touch of stroke can give a vibrant look to your text. Although text-stroke serves the purpose by uniformly adding a smooth outline, I prefer using text-shadow due to its good browser support. The latter is not intended for adding outlines, but is a very good CSS hack that gives you the effect you are looking for. Moreover, you can give blur effect with shadows which can add depth to your layout. Although text-shadow does not give good results if the shadow length is greater than 1px, you can always use a combination of text-shadow and text-stroke .