Text & Characters

This family groups together all the properties that allow you to control text, its font, size, spacing, alignment, and decorations.

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Standard properties (to use)

Property	Description
color	Defines the text color.
font	Shorthand property grouping multiple values (font-style, font-variant, font-weight, font-size, line-height, font-family).
font-family	Defines the font family (e.g., Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman).
font-size	Defines the font size (px, em, rem, %).
font-style	Defines the text style: normal, italic, oblique.
font-variant	Enables small caps (small-caps).
font-weight	Defines the font weight: normal, bold, 100 to 900.
letter-spacing	Defines the spacing between letters.
line-height	Defines the line height (leading).
text-align	Defines horizontal alignment: left, right, center, justify.
text-decoration	Defines text decorations: underline, overline, line-through.
text-overflow	Defines how overflowing content is displayed: ellipsis adds ellipsis (…)
text-shadow	Defines a shadow applied to the text.
text-transform	Defines text transformation: uppercase, lowercase, capitalize.
vertical-align	Defines vertical alignment (baseline, top, middle, bottom).
white-space	Controls handling of spaces and line breaks: normal, nowrap, pre, pre-wrap.
word-break	Defines word breaking: normal, break-all, keep-all.
word-wrap / overflow-wrap	Forces line breaks if a word overflows.
word-spacing	Defines spacing between words.
writing-mode	Defines the writing mode: horizontal-tb, vertical-rl, vertical-lr.
direction	Defines text direction: ltr (left → right), rtl (right → left).
unicode-bidi	Defines bidirectional text behavior in combination with direction.

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Specific or deprecated properties

Some properties are tied to older browsers (Internet Explorer) or specific use cases (Asian languages). They are rarely used today.

Property	Status	Explanation
font-size-adjust	Rarely used	Adjusts the height of lowercase letters independently of font-size.
font-stretch	Poorly supported	Defines font stretching or compression (condensed, expanded).
line-break	Specific to Asian languages	Defines line breaking rules in Japanese and Chinese.
text-align-last	Internet Explorer	Defines alignment of the last line specifically.
text-autospace	Internet Explorer	Defines automatic spacing for Asian characters.
text-kashida-space	Internet Explorer	Defines justification specific to Arabic text.
text-underline-position	Specific to Asian languages	Defines the underline position (useful for Japanese and Chinese).

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Key takeaways

• The main properties cover font (font-family, font-size, font-weight, font-style),
  spacing (line-height, letter-spacing, word-spacing),
  and text formatting (text-align, text-transform, text-decoration).
• Deprecated properties like text-autospace or text-kashida-space should no longer be used.
• For Asian languages or Arabic, some specific properties (line-break, writing-mode, unicode-bidi) may still be useful.