paint-order

The paint-order CSS property lets you control the order in which the fill and stroke (and painting markers) of text content and shapes are drawn.

Syntax

css
/* Normal */
paint-order: normal;

/* Single values */
paint-order: stroke; /* draw the stroke first, then fill and markers */
paint-order: markers; /* draw the markers first, then fill and stroke */

/* Multiple values */
paint-order: stroke fill; /* draw the stroke first, then the fill, then the markers */
paint-order: markers stroke fill; /* draw markers, then stroke, then fill */

/* Global values */
paint-order: inherit;
paint-order: initial;
paint-order: revert;
paint-order: revert-layer;
paint-order: unset;

If no value is specified, the default paint order is fill, stroke, markers.

When one value is specified, that one is painted first, followed by the other two in their default order relative to one another. When two values are specified, they will be painted in the order they are specified in, followed by the unspecified one.

Note: In the case of this property, markers are only appropriate when drawing SVG shapes involving the use of the marker-* properties (e.g. marker-start) and <marker> element. They do not apply to HTML text, so in that case, you can only determine the order of stroke and fill.

Values

normal

Paint the different items in normal paint order.

stroke, fill, markers

Specify some or all of these values in the order you want them to be painted in.

Formal definition

Initial valuenormal
Applies totext elements
Inheritedyes
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

paint-order = 
  normal                         |
  [ fill || stroke || markers ]

Examples

Reversing the paint order of stroke and fill

SVG

html
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="400" height="200">
  <text x="10" y="75">stroke in front</text>
  <text x="10" y="150" class="stroke-behind">stroke behind</text>
</svg>

CSS

css
text {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  font-size: 50px;
  font-weight: bold;
  fill: black;
  stroke: red;
  stroke-width: 4px;
}

.stroke-behind {
  paint-order: stroke fill;
}

Result

Reversing the paint order of stroke and fill using HTML

To control the fill and stroke order in HTML, you can use the -webkit-text-stroke-color and -webkit-text-stroke-width CSS properties.

HTML

html
<div>stroke in front</div>
<div class="stroke-behind">stroke behind</div>

CSS

css
div {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  font-size: 50px;
  font-weight: bold;
  fill: black;
  padding-top: 10px;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
  -webkit-text-stroke-color: red;
  -webkit-text-stroke-width: 4px;
}

.stroke-behind {
  paint-order: stroke fill;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
# PaintOrder

Browser compatibility

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See also