CSS transform doesn't work on inline elements
CssCss TransformsCss Problem Overview
I wanted to mirror letter E
in the word WEBLOG
so I used CSS transform property but it doesn't work if I wrap the text inside a span but it works if I assing display: inline-block;
or display: block;
So transforms doesn't apply to inline elements?
Example 1 (Fails To Transform)
<h1>W<span>E</span>BLOG</h1>
h1 span {
transform:rotate(7deg);
-ms-transform:rotate(7deg); /* IE 9 */
-moz-transform:rotate(7deg); /* Firefox */
-webkit-transform:rotate(7deg); /* Safari and Chrome */
-o-transform:rotate(7deg); /* Opera */
}
Example 2 (Works, If Used display: block
OR display: inline-block
)
Css Solutions
Solution 1 - Css
Answered here in the official W3 specifications under transformable element:
> an element whose layout is governed by the CSS box model which is > either a block-level or atomic inline-level element, or whose > ‘display’ property computes to ‘table-row’, ‘table-row-group’, > ‘table-header-group’, ‘table-footer-group’, ‘table-cell’, or > ‘table-caption’ [CSS21]
Solution 2 - Css
The updated version of the specification says:
>A transformable element is an element in one of these categories: > >- all elements whose layout is governed by the CSS box model except for non-replaced inline boxes, table-column boxes, and table-column-group boxes [CSS2], > >- all SVG paint server elements, the clipPath element and SVG renderable elements with the exception of any descendant element of text content elements [SVG2].
We should note that not all the inline
elements cannot be transformed but only the non-replaced inline elements thus the replaced inline elements can be transformed.
So basically we can apply transformation to img
, canvas
, etc without the need of making them inline-block
or block
var all = document.querySelectorAll('.replaced');
for(var i=0;i<all.length;i++) {
console.log(window.getComputedStyle(all[i],null).getPropertyValue("display"));
}
canvas {
background:red;
}
.replaced {
transform:rotate(20deg);
}
<img src="https://picsum.photos/200/200?image=1069" class="replaced">
<canvas class="replaced"></canvas>
More details about replaced elements:
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/rendering.html#replaced-elements
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Replaced_element