CSS3 Shadow Effects

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Box Shadow

With CSS3 you can create shadow effects!

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CSS3 Shadow Effects

With CSS3 you can add shadow to text and to elements.

In this chapter you will learn about the following properties:

text-shadow
box-shadow

Browser Support

The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the property.

Numbers followed by -webkit- or -moz- specifies the first version that worked with a prefix.

Property
text-shadow	4.0	10.0	3.5	4.0	9.5
box-shadow	10.0 4.0 -webkit-	9.0	4.0 3.5 -moz-	5.1 3.1 -webkit-	10.5

CSS3 Text Shadow

The CSS3 text-shadow property applies shadow to text.

In its simplest use, you only specify the horizontal shadow (2px) and the vertical shadow (2px):

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
text-shadow: 2px 2px;
}

Try it Yourself

Next, add a color to the shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
text-shadow: 2px 2px red;
}

Try it Yourself

Then, add a blur effect to the shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
text-shadow: 2px 2px 5px red;
}

Try it Yourself

The following example shows a white text with black shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
color: white;
text-shadow: 2px 2px 4px #000000;
}

Try it Yourself

The following example shows a red neon glow shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
text-shadow: 0 0 3px #FF0000;
}

Try it Yourself

Multiple Shadows

To add more than one shadow to the text, you can add a comma-separated list of shadows.

The following example shows a red and blue neon glow shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
text-shadow: 0 0 3px #FF0000, 0 0 5px #0000FF;
}

Try it Yourself

The following example shows a white text with black, blue, and darkblue shadow:

Text shadow effect!

Example

h1 {
color: white;
text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px black, 0 0 25px blue, 0 0 5px darkblue;
}

Try it Yourself

CSS3 box-shadow Property

The CSS3 box-shadow property applies shadow to elements.

In its simplest use, you only specify the horizontal shadow and the vertical shadow:

This is a yellow <div> element with a black box-shadow

Example

div {
box-shadow: 10px 10px;
}

Try it Yourself

Next, add a color to the shadow:

This is a yellow <div> element with a grey box-shadow

Example

div {
box-shadow: 10px 10px grey;
}

Try it Yourself

Next, add a blur effect to the shadow:

This is a yellow <div> element with a blurred, grey box-shadow

Example

div {
box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px grey;
}

Try it Yourself

You can also add shadows to the ::before and ::after pseudo-classes, to create an interesting effect:

Example

#boxshadow {
    position: relative;
    box-shadow: 1px 2px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, .5);
    padding: 10px;
    background: white;
}

#boxshadow img {
    width: 100%;
    border: 1px solid #8a4419;
    border-style: inset;
}

#boxshadow::after {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    z-index: -1; /* hide shadow behind image */
    box-shadow: 0 15px 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);
    width: 70%;
    left: 15%; /* one half of the remaining 30% */
    height: 100px;
    bottom: 0;
}

Try it Yourself

Cards

An example of using the box-shadow property to create paper-like cards:

1

January 1, 2016

Hardanger, Norway

Example

div.card {
    width: 250px;
    box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 6px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.19);
    text-align: center;
}

Try it Yourself

Test Yourself with Exercises

Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3 Exercise 4 Exercise 5

CSS3 Shadow Properties

The following table lists the CSS3 shadow properties:

Property	Description
box-shadow	Adds one or more shadows to an element
text-shadow	Adds one or more shadows to a text

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CSS3 Shadow Effects

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

Text shadow effect!

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