text-combine-upright

The text-combine-upright CSS property sets the combination of characters into the space of a single character. If the combined text is wider than 1em, the user agent must fit the contents within 1em. The resulting composition is treated as a single upright glyph for layout and decoration. This property only has an effect in vertical writing modes.

This is used to produce an effect that is known as tate-chū-yoko 縦中横 in Japanese, or as 橫向文字 in Chinese.

Try it

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
text-combine-upright: none;
text-combine-upright: all;

/* Digits values */
text-combine-upright: digits; /* fits 2 consecutive digits horizontally inside vertical text */
text-combine-upright: digits 4; /* fits up to 4 consecutive digits horizontally inside vertical text */

/* Global values */
text-combine-upright: inherit;
text-combine-upright: initial;
text-combine-upright: revert;
text-combine-upright: revert-layer;
text-combine-upright: unset;

Values

none

There is no special processing.

all

Attempts to typeset all consecutive characters within the box horizontally, such that they take up the space of a single character within the vertical line of the box.

digits <integer>?

Attempts to display a sequence of consecutive ASCII digits (U+0030–U+0039) that has as many or fewer characters than the specified integer, such that it takes up the space of a single character within the vertical line box. If the integer is omitted, it computes to 2. Integers outside the range of 2-4 are invalid.

Formal definition

Initial valuenone
Applies tonon-replaced inline elements
Inheritedyes
Computed valuespecified keyword, plus integer if 'digits'
Animation typeNot animatable

Formal syntax

text-combine-upright = 
  none                         |
  all                          |
  [ digits <integer [2,4]>? ]

Examples

Example using "digits"

The digits value requires less markup than the all value when digits are being combined, but it is currently not very widely supported by browsers.

HTML

<p lang="ja" class="exampleText">平成20年4月16日に</p>

CSS

.exampleText {
  writing-mode: vertical-lr;
  text-combine-upright: digits 2;
  font: 36px serif;
}

Results

ScreenshotLive sample

Example using "all"

The all value requires markup around every piece of horizontal text, but it is currently supported by more browsers than the digits value.

HTML

<p lang="zh-Hant">
  民國<span class="num">105</span>年<span class="num">4</span>月<span
    class="num"
    >29</span
  >日
</p>

CSS

html {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  font: 24px serif;
}
.num {
  text-combine-upright: all;
}

Results

ScreenshotLive sample

Specifications

Specification
CSS Writing Modes Level 4
# text-combine-upright

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also