css property

`padding-inline-start` CSS property

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.

Interactive exampleOpen the canonical MDN source to run this embedded demo.

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

/* <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 non-negative.
<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 non-negative.

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

Formal syntax

Examples

Setting inline start padding for vertical text

HTML

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

CSS

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

.exampleText {
  writing-mode: vertical-lr;
  padding-inline-start: 20px;
  background-color: #c8c800;
}

Result