padding-block CSS property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since April 2021.

The padding-block CSS shorthand property defines the logical block start and end padding of an element, which maps to physical padding properties depending on the element's writing mode, directionality, and text orientation.

Try it

padding-block: 10px 20px;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
padding-block: 20px 40px;
writing-mode: vertical-rl;
padding-block: 5% 10%;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
padding-block: 2em 4em;
writing-mode: vertical-lr;
<section id="default-example">
  <div class="transition-all" id="example-element">
    <div class="box">
      Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
      western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
    </div>
  </div>
</section>
#example-element {
  border: 10px solid #ffc129;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-align: left;
}

.box {
  border: dashed 1px;
  unicode-bidi: bidi-override;
}

Constituent properties

This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:

Syntax

css
/* <length> values */
padding-block: 10px 20px; /* An absolute length */
padding-block: 1em 2em; /* relative to the text size */
padding-block: 10px; /* sets both start and end values */

/* <percentage> values */
padding-block: 5% 2%; /* relative to the nearest block container's width */

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

The padding-block property may be specified with one or two values. If one value is given, it is used as the value for both padding-block-start and padding-block-end. If two values are given, the first is used for padding-block-start and the second for padding-block-end.

Values

The padding-block property takes the same values as the padding-top property.

Description

The padding values specified by padding-block can be equivalent to the padding-top and padding-bottom properties or the padding-right and padding-left properties, depending on the values defined for writing-mode, direction, and text-orientation.

Formal definition

Initial valueas each of the properties of the shorthand:
Applies toall elements, except table-row-group, table-header-group, table-footer-group, table-row, table-column-group and table-column
Inheritedno
Percentageslogical-width of containing block
Computed valueas each of the properties of the shorthand:
Animation typea length

Formal syntax

padding-block = 
<'padding-top'>{1,2}

<padding-top> =
<length-percentage [0,∞]>

<length-percentage> =
<length> |
<percentage>

Examples

Setting block padding for vertical text

HTML

html
<div>
  <p class="exampleText">Example text</p>
</div>

CSS

css
div {
  background-color: yellow;
  width: 120px;
  height: 120px;
}

.exampleText {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  padding-block: 20px 40px;
  background-color: #c8c800;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Logical Properties and Values Module Level 1
# propdef-padding-block

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
padding-block
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 87 (Release date: 2020-11-17)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 87 (Release date: 2020-11-19)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 66 (Release date: 2019-03-19)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 73 (Release date: 2020-12-09)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 14.1 (Release date: 2021-04-26)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 87 (Release date: 2020-11-17)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 66 (Release date: 2019-03-19)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 62 (Release date: 2021-02-16)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 14.5 (Release date: 2021-04-26)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 14 (Release date: 2021-04-17)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 87 (Release date: 2020-11-17)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 14.5 (Release date: 2021-04-26)
footnote Full support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also