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text-orientation

The text-orientation CSS property defines the orientation of the text characters in a line. This property only has an effect in vertical mode, that is, when writing-mode is not horizontal-tb. It is useful for controlling the display of languages that use vertical script, and also for making vertical table headers.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
text-orientation: mixed;
text-orientation: upright;
text-orientation: sideways-right;
text-orientation: sideways;
text-orientation: use-glyph-orientation;

/* Global values */
text-orientation: inherit;
text-orientation: initial;
text-orientation: unset;

The text-orientation property is specified as a single keyword from the list below.

Values

mixed: Rotates the characters of horizontal scripts 90° clockwise. Lays out the characters of vertical scripts naturally. Default value.
upright: Lays out the characters of horizontal scripts naturally (upright), as well as the glyphs for vertical scripts. Note that this keyword causes all characters to be considered as left-to-right: the used value of direction is forced to be ltr.
sideways: Causes characters to be laid out as they would be horizontally, but with the whole line rotated 90° clockwise.
sideways-right: An alias to sideways that is kept for compatibility purposes.
use-glyph-orientation: On SVG elements, this keyword leads to use the value of the deprecated SVG properties glyph-orientation-vertical and glyph-orientation-horizontal.

Formal syntax

mixed | upright | sideways

Examples

HTML

<p>Lorem ipsum dolet semper quisquam.</p>

CSS

p {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  text-orientation: upright;
}

Result

Specification

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Writing Modes Module Level 3 The definition of 'text-orientation' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Initial definition.

Initial value	`mixed`
Applies to	all elements, except table row groups, rows, column groups, and columns
Inherited	yes
Media	visual
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	48 48 Yes Prefixed Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-	?	41 41 38 — 51 Disabled Disabled From version 38 until version 51 (exclusive): this feature is behind the `layout.css.vertical-text.enabled` preference (needs to be set to `true`). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.	No	Yes Prefixed Yes Prefixed Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-	No
`sideways`	No	?	44 44 `sideways-right` has become an alias of `sideways`.	No	No	No

	Mobile
	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Edge Mobile	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	iOS Safari	Samsung Internet
Basic support	48 48 Yes Prefixed Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-	48 48 Yes Prefixed Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-	?	41 41 38 — 51 Disabled Disabled From version 38 until version 51 (exclusive): this feature is behind the `layout.css.vertical-text.enabled` preference (needs to be set to `true`). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.	No	No	5.0 5.0 Yes Prefixed Prefixed Implemented with the vendor prefix: -webkit-
`sideways`	No	No	?	44 44 `sideways-right` has become an alias of `sideways`.	No	No	No