quotes

The quotes CSS property sets how the browser should render quotation marks that are added using the open-quotes or close-quotes values of the CSS content property.

Try it

Syntax

css

/* Keyword value */
quotes: none;
quotes: auto;

/* <string> values */
quotes: "«" "»"; /* Set open-quote and close-quote to the French quotation marks */
quotes: "«" "»" "‹" "›"; /* Set two levels of quotation marks */

/* Global values */
quotes: inherit;
quotes: initial;
quotes: revert;
quotes: revert-layer;
quotes: unset;

Values

none

The open-quote and close-quote values of the content property produce no quotation marks.

auto

Appropriate quote marks will be used for whatever language value is set on the selected elements (i.e. via the lang attribute).

[<string> <string>]+

One or more pairs of <string> values for open-quote and close-quote. The first pair represents the outer level of quotation, the second pair is for the first nested level, next pair for third level and so on.

Formal definition

Initial valuedepends on user agent
Applies toall elements
Inheritedyes
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

quotes = 
  auto                    |
  none                    |
  [ <string> <string> ]+

Examples

Basic quote marks

HTML

html

<q>To be or not to be. That's the question!</q>

CSS

css

q {
  quotes: '"' '"' "'" "'";
}
q::before {
  content: open-quote;
}
q::after {
  content: close-quote;
}

Result

Auto quotes

For most browsers, the default value of quotes is auto (Firefox 70+), or the browser otherwise had this default behavior (Chromiums, Safari, Edge), so this example works without it being explicitly being set.

HTML

html

<div lang="fr">
  <q>Ceci est une citation française.</q>
  <div>
    <hr />
    <div lang="ru">
      <q>Это русская цитата</q>
      <div>
        <hr />
        <div lang="de">
          <q>Dies ist ein deutsches Zitat</q>
          <div>
            <hr />
            <div lang="en">
              <q>This is an English quote.</q>
              <div></div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

CSS

css

/*q {
  quotes: auto;
}*/

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Generated Content Module Level 3
# quotes

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also