Pseudo-elements
A CSS pseudo-element is a keyword added to a selector that lets you style a specific part of the selected element(s). For example, ::first-line
can be used to change the font of the first line of a paragraph.
css
/* The first line of every <p> element. */
p::first-line {
color: blue;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
Note: In contrast to pseudo-elements, pseudo-classes
can be used to style an element based on its state.
Syntax
css
selector::pseudo-element {
property: value;
}
You can use only one pseudo-element in a selector. It must appear after the simple selectors in the statement.
Note: As a rule, double colons (::
) should be used instead of a single colon (:
). This distinguishes pseudo-classes from pseudo-elements. However, since this distinction was not present in older versions of the W3C spec, most browsers support both syntaxes for the original pseudo-elements.
Alphabetical index
Pseudo-elements defined by a set of CSS specifications include the following:
A
B
C
F
G
::grammar-error
Experimental
M
P
S
::selection
::slotted()
::spelling-error
Experimental
T
::target-text
Experimental
Specifications
Specification |
---|
Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 2 (CSS 2.2) Specification # pseudo-element-selectors |
Browser compatibility
Browser | Lowest Version | Support of |
---|---|---|
Firefox (Gecko) | 1.0 (1.0) | :pseudo-element |
1.0 (1.5) | :pseudo-element ::pseudo-element |
|
Opera | 4.0 | :pseudo-element |
7.0 | :pseudo-element ::pseudo-element |
|
Safari (WebKit) | 1.0 (85) | :pseudo-element ::pseudo-element |