CSS Lists

CSS Styling Lists

In HTML, there are two main types of lists:

• <ul> - unordered lists (list items are marked with bullets)
• <ol> - ordered lists (list items are marked with numbers or letters)

CSS has the following properties for styling HTML lists:

• list-style-type - Specifies the type of list-item marker
• list-style-image - Specifies an image as the list-item marker
• list-style-position - Specifies the position of the list-item markers
• list-style - A shorthand property for the properties above

CSS Style List-item Markers

The CSS list-style-type property specifies the type of list-item marker in a list.

The following example shows some of the available list-item markers:

Note: Some of the values are for unordered lists, and some for ordered lists.

CSS Replace List-item Marker with an Image

The CSS list-style-image property is used to replace the list-item marker with an image.

Note: Always specify a list-style-type property in addition. This property is used if the image for some reason is unavailable.

CSS Position the List-item Markers

The CSS list-style-position property specifies the position of the list-item markers (bullet points).

list-style-position: outside; means that the bullet points will be outside the list item. The start of each line of a list item will be aligned vertically. This is default:

• Coffee
• Tea
• Coca-cola

list-style-position: inside; means that the bullet points will be inside the list item. As it is part of the list item, it will be part of the text and push the text at the start:

• Coffee
• Tea
• Coca-cola

CSS Remove List-Item Markers

The list-style-type:none; property is used to remove the list-item markers.

Note: A list has a default margin and padding. To remove this, add margin:0 and padding:0 to the <ul> or <ol> element:

CSS list-style Shorthand Property

The list-style property is a shorthand property. It is used to set all the list properties in one declaration.

When using the shorthand property, the order of the property values are:

• list-style-type
• list-style-position
• list-style-image

If one of the property values above is missing, the default value for the missing property will be inserted.

CSS Styling List With Colors

We can also style lists with colors, margins and padding, to make them look a little more interesting.

Anything added to the <ol> or <ul> tag, affects the entire list, while properties added to the <li> tag will affect the individual list items:

More Examples

Customized list with a red left border
This example demonstrates how to create a list with a red left border.

Full-width bordered list
This example demonstrates how to create a bordered list without bullets.

All the different list-item markers for lists
This example demonstrates all the different list-item markers in CSS.

All CSS List Properties