writing-mode

The writing-mode attribute specifies whether the initial inline-progression-direction for a <text> element shall be left-to-right, right-to-left, or top-to-bottom. The writing-mode attribute applies only to <text> elements; the attribute is ignored for <tspan>, <tref>, <altGlyph> and <textPath> sub-elements. (Note that the inline-progression-direction can change within a <text> element due to the Unicode bidirectional algorithm and properties direction and unicode-bidi.

As a presentation attribute, it also can be used as a property directly inside a CSS stylesheet, see css writing-mode for further information

Usage context

lr-tb | lr

Sets the initial inline-progression-direction to left-to-right, as is common in most Latin-based documents. For most characters, the current text position is advanced from left to right after each glyph is rendered.

rl-tb | rl

Sets the initial inline-progression-direction to right-to-left, as is common in Arabic or Hebrew scripts.

tb-rl | tb

Sets the initial inline-progression-direction to top-to-bottom, as is common in some Asian scripts, such as Chinese and Japanese. Though hardly as frequent as horizontal, this type of vertical layout also occurs in Latin based documents, particularly in table column or row labels. In most cases, the vertical baselines running through the middle of each glyph are aligned.

Example

Elements

The following elements can use the writing-mode attribute

• <text>

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

See also

• CSS version: writing-mode