hanging-punctuation

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

The hanging-punctuation CSS property specifies whether a punctuation mark should hang at the start or end of a line of text. Hanging punctuation may be placed outside the line box.

Syntax

css

/* Keyword values */
hanging-punctuation: none;
hanging-punctuation: first;
hanging-punctuation: last;
hanging-punctuation: allow-end;

/* Two keywords */
hanging-punctuation: first allow-end;
hanging-punctuation: first last;
hanging-punctuation: last allow-end;

/* Three keywords */
hanging-punctuation: first allow-end last;

/* Global values */
hanging-punctuation: inherit;
hanging-punctuation: initial;
hanging-punctuation: revert;
hanging-punctuation: revert-layer;
hanging-punctuation: unset;

The hanging-punctuation property may be specified with one, two, or three space-separated values.

Values

none

No character hangs.

first

An opening bracket or quote at the start of the first formatted line of an element hangs. This applies to:

all characters in the Unicode categories Ps, Pf, Pi
the quote marks U+0027 APOSTROPHE (') and U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (").

last

A closing bracket or quote at the end of the last formatted line of an element hangs. This applies to:

all characters in the Unicode categories Pe, Pf, Pi
the quote marks U+0027 APOSTROPHE (') and U+0022 QUOTATION MARK (").

allow-end

A stop or comma at the end of a line hangs if it does not otherwise fit prior to justification.

Stops and commas that are allowed to hang include:

U+002C, COMMA
U+002E, FULL STOP
U+060C, ARABIC COMMA
U+06D4, ARABIC FULL STOP
U+3001, IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA
U+3002, IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
U+FF0C, FULLWIDTH COMMA
U+FF0E, FULLWIDTH FULL STOP
U+FE50, SMALL COMMA
U+FE51, SMALL IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA
U+FE52, SMALL FULL STOP
U+FF61, HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
U+FF64, HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA

User agents may include additional characters.

Formal definition

Initial value	`none`
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

hanging-punctuation = 
  none                                            |
  [ first || [ force-end | allow-end ] || last ]

Examples

Setting opening and closing quotes to hang

HTML

html

<p>
  «For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued
  to happen.»
</p>

<p class="hanging">
  «For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued
  to happen.»
</p>

<p class="hanging right">
  «For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued
  to happen.»
</p>

CSS

css

p {
  width: 15em;
  border: 1px solid #cccccc;
  font-size: 2rem;
  font-style: italic;
  margin: 1em;
}

p.hanging {
  hanging-punctuation: first last;
}

p.right {
  text-align: right;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Module Level 3 # hanging-punctuation-property

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Jul 14, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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