Changing the highlight color when selecting text in an HTML text input

I've been looking for this throughout the web and can't even find anyone else even asking this, let alone a solution...

Is there a way to change the color of the highlight area within a text input when text is selected? Not the highlight border or the background, but the portion that appears around the text when you have the text actually selected.

If you are looking for this:

Here is the link:

http://css-tricks.com/overriding-the-default-text-selection-color-with-css/

this is the code.

/*** Works on common browsers ***/
::selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}
 
/*** Mozilla based browsers ***/
::-moz-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

/***For Other Browsers ***/
::-o-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

::-ms-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

/*** For Webkit ***/
::-webkit-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

I realise this is an old question but for anyone who does come across it this can be done using contenteditable as shown in this JSFiddle.

Kudos to Alex who mentioned this in the comments (I didn't see that until now!)

All answers here are correct when it comes to the ::selection pseudo element, and how it works. However, the question does in fact specifically ask how to use it on text inputs.

The only way to do that is to apply the rule via a parent of the input (any parent for that matter):

.parent ::-webkit-selection, [contenteditable]::-webkit-selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

.parent ::-moz-selection, [contenteditable]::-moz-selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

.parent ::selection, [contenteditable]::selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

/* Aesthetics */
input, [contenteditable] {
  border:1px solid black;
  display:inline-block;
  width: 150px;
  height: 20px;
  line-height: 20px;
  padding: 3px;
}

<span class="parent"><input type="text" value="Input" /></span>
<span contenteditable>Content Editable</span>

Here is the rub:

    ::selection {
background: #ffb7b7; /* WebKit/Blink Browsers /
}
::-moz-selection {
background: #ffb7b7; / Gecko Browsers */
}

Within the selection selector, color and background are the only properties that work. What you can do for some extra flair, is change the selection color for different paragraphs or different sections of the page.

All I did was use different selection color for paragraphs with different classes:

    p.red::selection {
background: #ffb7b7;
}
p.red::-moz-selection {
background: #ffb7b7;
}
p.blue::selection {
background: #a8d1ff;
}
p.blue::-moz-selection {
background: #a8d1ff;
}
p.yellow::selection {
background: #fff2a8;
}
p.yellow::-moz-selection {
background: #fff2a8;
}

Note how the selectors are not combined, even though >the style block is doing the same thing. It doesn't work if you combine them:

<pre>/* Combining like this WILL NOT WORK */
p.yellow::selection,
p.yellow::-moz-selection {
  background: #fff2a8;
}</pre>

That's because browsers ignore the entire selector if there is a part of it they don't understand or is invalid. There is some exceptions to this (IE 7?) but not in relation to these selectors.

#DEMO #LINK WHERE INFO IS FROM

@ Mike Eng,

On selecting the text background color, text color can be changed with the help of ::selection, note that ::selection works in in chrome, to make that work in firefox based browsers try this one ::-moz-selection

Try the following snippet of code in reset.css or the css page where exactly you want to apply the effect.

::selection{
   //Works only for the chrome browsers
   background-color: #CFCFCF; //This turns the background color to Gray
   color: #000; // This turns the selected font color to Black
}

::-moz-selection{
   //Works for the firefox based browsers
   background-color: #CFCFCF; //This turns the background color to Gray
   color: #000; // This turns the selected font color to Black
}

The above code will work even in the input boxes too.

Thanks for the links, but it does seem as if the actual text highlighting just isn't exposed.

As far as the actual issue at hand, I ended up opting for a different approach by eliminating the need for a text input altogether and using innerHTML with some JavaScript. Not only does it get around the text highlighting, it actually looks much cleaner.

This granular of a tweak to an HTML form control is just another good argument for eliminating form controls altogether. Haha!

It seems like when you define the border inside of a focus pseudo element style declaration it uses that instead of the normal blue border. Using that you can define a style that is exactly the same as the element border.

input:focus, textarea:focus {
    border:1px solid gray;
}

#textarea  {
  position:absolute;
  top:10px;
  left:10px;
  right:10px;
  width:calc(100% - 20px);
  height:160px;
  display:inline-block;
  margin-top:-0.2em;
}

<textarea id="textarea">yo</textarea>

Here is a modified border style:

input:focus, textarea:focus {
    border:2px dotted red;
}

#textarea  {
  position:absolute;
  top:10px;
  left:10px;
  right:10px;
  width:calc(100% - 20px);
  height:160px;
  display:inline-block;
  margin-top:-0.2em;
}

<textarea id="textarea">yo</textarea>

Try this code to use:

/* For Mozile Firefox Browser */

::-moz-selection { background-color: #4CAF50; }

/* For Other Browser*/
::selection { background-color: #4CAF50; }

I guess this can help :

> selection styles > > It's possible to define color and background for text the user > selects. > > Try it below. If you select something and it looks like this, your > browser supports selection styles. > > This is the paragraph with normal ::selection. > > This is the paragraph with ::-moz-selection. > > This is the paragraph with ::-webkit-selection. > > Testsheet: > > p.normal::selection { > background:#cc0000; > color:#fff; > } >
> p.moz::-moz-selection { > background:#cc0000; > color:#fff; > } >
> p.webkit::-webkit-selection { > background:#cc0000; > color:#fff; > }

Quoted from Quirksmode