padding-inline-start 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 January 2020.

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

Try it

padding-inline-start: 20px;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
padding-inline-start: 20px;
writing-mode: vertical-rl;
padding-inline-start: 5em;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
direction: rtl;
<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;
}

Syntax

css
/* <length> values */
padding-inline-start: 10px; /* An absolute length */
padding-inline-start: 1em; /* A length relative to the text size */

/* <percentage> value */
padding-inline-start: 5%; /* A padding relative to the block container's width */

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

Values

<length>

The size of the padding as a fixed value. Must be nonnegative.

<percentage>

The size of the padding as a percentage, relative to the inline size (width in a horizontal language, defined by writing-mode) of the containing block. Must be nonnegative.

Description

The padding-inline-start property takes the same values as physical properties such as padding-top. However, it can be equivalent to padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, or padding-bottom depending on the values set for writing-mode, direction, and text-orientation.

It relates to padding-block-start, padding-block-end, and padding-inline-end, which define the other padding values of the element.

Formal definition

Initial value0
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 <length>
Animation typea length

Formal syntax

padding-inline-start = 
<'padding-top'>

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

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

Examples

Setting inline start 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-lr;
  padding-inline-start: 20px;
  background-color: #c8c800;
}

Result

Specifications

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

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-inline-start
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 2 (Release date: 2009-05-21)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 69 (Release date: 2018-09-04)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 79 (Release date: 2020-01-15)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Edge – Full support
Edge 79 (Release date: 2020-01-15)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 3 (Release date: 2008-06-17)
altname
altname Alternate name: -moz-padding-start
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 41 (Release date: 2015-09-22)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 15 (Release date: 2013-07-02)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Opera – Full support
Opera 56 (Release date: 2018-09-25)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 3 (Release date: 2007-10-26)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Safari – Full support
Safari 12.1 (Release date: 2019-03-25)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 18 (Release date: 2012-06-27)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 69 (Release date: 2018-09-04)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 4 (Release date: 2011-03-29)
altname
altname Alternate name: -moz-padding-start
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 41 (Release date: 2015-09-22)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 14 (Release date: 2013-05-21)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 48 (Release date: 2018-11-08)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 3 (Release date: 2009-06-17)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 12.2 (Release date: 2019-03-25)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 1 (Release date: 2013-04-27)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 10 (Release date: 2019-08-22)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 2 (Release date: 2009-10-26)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 87 (Release date: 2020-11-17)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 3 (Release date: 2009-06-17)
altname
altname Alternate name: -webkit-padding-start
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 12.2 (Release date: 2019-03-25)
footnote Full support

Legend

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

Full support
Full support
Uses a non-standard name
Has more compatibility info.

See also