negative

When defining custom counter styles, the negative descriptor lets you alter the representations of negative counter values, by providing a way to specify symbols to be appended or prepended to the counter representation when the value is negative.

Syntax

css

/* <symbol> values */
negative: "-"; /* Prepends '-' if value is negative */
negative: "(" ")"; /* Surrounds value by '(' and ')' if it is negative */

Values

first <symbol>: This symbol will be prepended to the representation when the counter is negative.
second <symbol>: If present, this symbol will be appended to the representation when the counter is negative.

Description

If the counter value is negative, the symbol provided as value for the descriptor is prepended to the counter representation; and a second symbol if specified, will be appended to the representation. The negative descriptor has effect only if the system value is symbolic, alphabetic, numeric, additive, or extends, if the extended counter style itself uses a negative sign. If the negative descriptor is specified for other systems that don't support negative counter values, then the descriptor is ignored.

Formal definition

Related at-rule	`@counter-style`
Initial value	`"-" hyphen-minus`
Computed value	as specified

Formal syntax

negative = 
  <symbol> <symbol>?  

<symbol> = 
  <string>        |
  <image>         |
  <custom-ident>  

<image> = 
  <url>       |
  <gradient>  

<url> = 
  url( <string> <url-modifier>* )  |
  src( <string> <url-modifier>* )

Examples

Rendering negative counters

HTML

html

<ol class="list" start="-3">
  <li>One</li>
  <li>Two</li>
  <li>Three</li>
  <li>Four</li>
  <li>Five</li>
</ol>

CSS

css

@counter-style neg {
  system: numeric;
  symbols: "0" "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9";
  negative: "(-" ")";
}

.list {
  list-style: neg;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Counter Styles Level 3 # counter-style-system

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser