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Text shadows

CSS level 3 has a property called 'text-shadow' to add a shadow to each letter of some text. In its simplest form, it looks something like this: 

h3 {text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em #333}

Which adds a dark gray (#333) shadow a little to the right (0.1em) and down (0.1em) relative to the normal text. The result looks like this:

The noak and the barcicle

Fuzzy text shadow

The simplest form of the 'text-shadow' property has two parts: a color (such as the #333 above) and an offset (0.1em 0.1em in the example above). This results in a sharp shadow at the indicated offset. But the offset can also be made fuzzy, resulting in a more or less blurred shadow.

The amount of fuzziness is given as another offset. Here are two lines, one with a little fuzziness (0.05em) and one with a lot (0.2em): 

h3.a {text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.05em #333}
h3.b {text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black}

“What do you say?” said the UK

In order to see more clearly

Readable white text

Shadows can make text more readable if the contrast between the foreground and the background is small. Here is an example of white text against a pale blue background, first without a shadow and then with: 

h3 {color: white}
h3.a {color: white; text-shadow: black 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em}

Without shadow:

What is in it for me?

With shadow:

With a shovel and some oranges

Multiple shadows

You can also have more than one shadow. In general, that looks rather strange: 

h3 {text-shadow: 0.2em 0.5em 0.1em #600,
      -0.3em 0.1em 0.1em #060,
      0.4em -0.3em 0.1em #006}

I wish wish wish…

But with two well-placed dark and light shadows, the effect can be useful: 

h3.a {text-shadow: -1px -1px white, 1px 1px #333}
h3.b {text-shadow: 1px 1px white, -1px -1px #444}

I, Augustus (you know who)

That's extra, of course

This is a bit dangerous, as you can see if your browser doesn't support 'text-shadow'. In fact, the colors of the background and the text in this example are almost the same (#CCCCCC and #D1D1D1), so without the shadows, there is barely any contrast.

Drawing letters as outlines

The two-shadows example of the previous version can be taken even further. With four shadows, letters can be given an outline: 

h3 {text-shadow: -1px 0 black, 0 1px black,
      1px 0 black, 0 -1px black}

Are you feeling red?

A cat, an apple, etcetera

It is not a perfect outline, and at this time (August 2005), the discussion is still open whether CSS should have a separate property (or perhaps a value for 'text-decoration') to make better outlines.

Neon glow

If you put a fuzzy shadow right behind the text, i.e., with zero offset, the effect is to create a glow around the letters. If the glow of a single shadow isn't intense enough, just repeat the same shadow a few times: 

h3.a {text-shadow: 0 0 0.2em #8F7}
h3.b {text-shadow: 0 0 0.2em #F87, 0 0 0.2em #F87}
h3.c {text-shadow: 0 0 0.2em #87F, 0 0 0.2em #87F,
        0 0 0.2em #87F}

With a zest of best

There's no no like a better no

Indeed, quite right, Mr M

Bert Bos, style activity lead
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Created 4 August 2005;
Last updated Wed 06 Jan 2021 05:40:49 AM UTC

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