Custom bullet symbol for <li> elements in <ul> that is a regular character, and not an image

I realize one can specify a custom graphic to be a replacement bullet character, using CSS attribute:

list-style-image

And then giving it a URL.

However, in my case, I just want to use the '+' symbol. I don't want to have to create a graphic for that and then point to it. I'd rather just instruct the unordered list to use a plus symbol as the bullet symbol.

Can this be done or am I forced to make it a graphic first?

This is a late answer, but I just came across this... To get the indenting correct on any lines that wrap, try it this way:

ul {
  list-style: none;
  margin-left: 0;
  padding-left: 0;
}

li {
  padding-left: 1em;
  text-indent: -1em;
}

li:before {
  content: "+";
  padding-right: 5px;
}

The following is quoted from Taming Lists:

> There may be times when you have a list, but you don’t want any bullets, or you want to use some other character in place of the bullet. Again, CSS provides a straightforward solution. Simply add list-style: none; to your rule and force the LIs to display with hanging indents. The rule will look something like this: > > ul { > list-style: none; > margin-left: 0; > padding-left: 1em; > text-indent: -1em; > } > > Either the padding or the margin needs to be set to zero, with the other one set to 1em. Depending on the “bullet” that you choose, you may need to modify this value. The negative text-indent causes the first line to be moved to the left by that amount, creating a hanging indent. > > The HTML will contain our standard UL, but with whatever character or HTML entity that you want to use in place of the bullet preceding the content of the list item. In our case we'll be using », the right double angle quote: ». > > > » Item 1
> > » Item 2
> > » Item 3
> > » Item 4
> > » Item 5 we'll make
> >    a bit longer so that
> >    it will wrap

So many solutions.
But I still think there is room for improvement.

Advantages:

• very compact code
• works with any font size
  (no absolute pixel values contained)
• aligns rows perfectly
  (no slight shift between first line and following lines)

ul {
	position: relative;
	list-style: none;
	margin-left: 0;
	padding-left: 1.2em;
}
ul li:before {
	content: "+";
	position: absolute;
	left: 0;
}

<ul>
  <li>Curabitur non nulla sit amet nisl tempus convallis quis ac lectus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Donec velit neque, auctor sit amet aliquam vel, ullamcorper sit amet ligula. Pellentesque in ipsum id orci porta dapibus.</li>
  <li>Nulla porttitor accumsan tincidunt. Mauris blandit aliquet elit, eget tincidunt nibh pulvinar a. Aliquet quam id dui posuere blandit. Curabitur non nulla sit amet nisl tempus convallis quis ac lectus.</li>
</ul>

This is the W3C solution. Works in Firefox, Chrome and Edge.

ul { list-style-type: "🔔"; }
/* Sets the marker to a 🔔 emoji character */

http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-lists/#marker-content

ul { list-style-type: "🔔 "; }

• item
• item
• item
• item

Here is the best solution I've found so far. It works great and it's cross-browser (IE 8+).

ul {
	list-style: none;
	margin-left: 0;
	padding-left: 1.2em;
	text-indent: -1.2em;
}

li:before {
	content: "►";
	display: block;
	float: left;
	width: 1.2em;
	color: #ff0000;
}

The important thing is to have the character in a floating block with a fixed width so that the text remains aligned if it's too long to fit on a single line. 1.2em is the width you want for your character, change it for your needs.

Font-awesome provides a great solution out of the box:

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />

<ul class='fa-ul'>
  <li><i class="fa-li fa fa-plus"></i> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam</li>
  <li><i class="fa-li fa fa-plus"></i> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam</li>
</ul>

You can use the :before pseudo-selector to insert content in front of the list item. You can find an example on Quirksmode, at http://www.quirksmode.org/css/beforeafter.html. I use this to insert giant quotes around blockquotes...

HTH.

My solution uses positioning to get wrapped lines automatically line up correctly. So you don't have to worry about setting padding-right on the li:before.

ul {
  margin-left: 0;
  padding-left: 0;
  list-style-type: none;
}

ul li {
  position: relative;
  margin-left: 1em;
}

ul li:before {
  position: absolute;
  left: -1em;
  content: "+";
}

<ul>
  <li>Item 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam</li>
  <li>Item 2 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam</li>
  <li>Item 3 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam</li>
  <li>Item 4</li>
  <li>Item 5</li>
</ul>

It's advisable to qualify the styling of the <li> so it does not affect <ol> list items. So:

ul {
    list-style: none;
    margin-left: 0;
    padding-left: 0;
}

ul li {
    padding-left: 1em;
    text-indent: -1em;
}

ul li:before {
    content: "+";
    padding-right: 5px;
}

.list-dash li, .list-bullet li {
    position: relative;
    list-style-type: none; /* disc circle(hollow) square none */
    text-indent: -2em;
}
.list-dash li:before {
    content: '—  '; /* em dash */
}
.list-bullet li:before {
    content: '• '; /*copy and paste a bullet from HTML in browser into CSS (not using ASCII codes) */
}

<ul class="list-dash">
    <li>Item 1</li>
    <li>Item 2</li>
    <li>Item 3</li>
    <li>Item 4</li>
</ul>

.single-before {
  list-style: "👍";
  list-style-position: outside!important;
}

<ul class="single-before">
  <li> is to manifest perfection already in man.</li>
  <li> is to bring out the best facets of our students personalities.</li>
</ul>

You can make use of ::marker pseudo element. This is useful in situations when you need to have different character entities for each list item.

ul li::marker {
  content: " "; /* Your symbol here */
}

ul li:nth-child(1)::marker {
  content: "\26BD   ";
}

ul li:nth-child(2)::marker {
  content: "\26C5   ";
}

ul li:nth-child(3)::marker {
  content: "\26F3   ";
}

ul li::marker {
  font-size: 20px;
}

ul li {
  margin: 15px 0;
  font-family: sans-serif;
  background: #BADA55;
  color: black;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
  padding-left: 10px;
  padding-top: 5px;
}

<ul>
  <li>France Vs Croatia</li>
  <li>Cloudy with sunshine</li>
  <li>Golf session ahead</li>
</ul>

Em dash style:

ul.emdash {
  list-style-type: none;
  list-style-position: inside;
  text-indent: -1.25em;
}
ul.emdash > li:before {
  content: "\2014\00A0"; /* em dash + space*/
}

I prefer to use negative margin, gives you more control

ul {
  margin-left: 0;
  padding-left: 20px;
  list-style: none;
}

li:before {
  content: "*";
  display: inline;
  float: left;
  margin-left: -18px;
}

Interestingly enough I do not thing any of the posted solutions are good enough, because they rely on the fact that the character used is 1em wide, which does not need to be so (with maybe exception of John Magnolia's answer which however uses floats which can complicate things another way). Here is my attempt:

ul { list-style-type: none; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 30px; /* change 30px to anything / text-indent: -30px; } ul li:before { content: "xy"; display: inline-block; width: 30px; text-indent: 0; text-align: center; / change this for different bullet position */ }

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
• Item 4
• Item 5

This has these advantages (over other solutions):

1. It does not rely on the width of the symbol as you see in the example. I used two characters to show that it works even with wide bullets. If you try this in other solutions you get the text misaligned (in fact it is even visible with * symbol in higher zooms).
2. It gives you total control of the space used by bullets. You can replace 30px by anything (even 1em etc). Just do not forgot to change it on all three places.
3. If gives you total control of positioning of the bullet. Just replace the text-align: center; by anything to your liking. For example you may try color: red; text-align: right; padding-right: 5px; box-sizing: border-box; or if you do not like playing with border-box, just subtract the padding (5px) from width (i.e. width:25px in this example). There are lots of options.
4. It does not use floats so it can be contained anywhere.

Enjoy.

In Bootstrap you can use class list-unstyled. Then, instead bullet you can use for example HTML emoji or something else:

<ul class="text-dark display-4 list-unstyled">
    <li>&#127774; Phasellus iaculis neque</li>
    <li>&#127803; Purus sodales ultricies</li>
    <li>&#127774; Vestibulum laoreet porttitor sem</li>
    <li>&#127803; Ac tristique libero volutpat at</li>
</ul>

First, thanks to @Jpsy as my answer is based on that.

I have extended that answer to support the Google Material Icons pack as the custom icon.

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/icon?family=Material+Icons" rel="stylesheet">
<ul>
  <li>Curabitur non nulla sit amet nisl tempus convallis quis ac lectus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Donec velit neque, auctor sit amet aliquam vel, ullamcorper sit amet ligula. Pellentesque in ipsum id orci porta dapibus.</li>
  <li>Nulla porttitor accumsan tincidunt. Mauris blandit aliquet elit, eget tincidunt nibh pulvinar a. Aliquet quam id dui posuere blandit. Curabitur non nulla sit amet nisl tempus convallis quis ac lectus.</li>
</ul>

ul {
	position: relative;
	list-style: none;
	margin-left: 0;
	padding-left: 1.2em;
}

ul li:before {
	font-family: 'Material Icons';
    content: "double_arrow"; /* Change this to whichever icon you would like from https://fonts.google.com/icons?selected=Material+Icons */
	position: absolute;
	left: 0;
}

@font-face {
    font-family: 'Material Icons';
    font-style: normal;
    font-weight: 400;
    src: url(https://example.com/MaterialIcons-Regular.eot); /* For IE6-8 */
    src: local('Material Icons'),
      local('MaterialIcons-Regular'),
      url(https://example.com/MaterialIcons-Regular.woff2) format('woff2'),
      url(https://example.com/MaterialIcons-Regular.woff) format('woff'),
      url(https://example.com/MaterialIcons-Regular.ttf) format('truetype');
}

try this

    ul.a {
        list-style-type: circle;
    }
    
    ul.b {
        list-style-type: square;
    }
    
    ol.c {
        list-style-type: upper-roman;
    }
    
    ol.d {
        list-style-type: lower-alpha;
    }
    

<!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
    
    </head>
    <body>
    
    <p>Example of unordered lists:</p>
    <ul class="a">
      <li>Coffee</li>
      <li>Tea</li>
      <li>Coca Cola</li>
    </ul>
    
    <ul class="b">
      <li>Coffee</li>
      <li>Tea</li>
      <li>Coca Cola</li>
    </ul>
    
    <p>Example of ordered lists:</p>
    <ol class="c">
      <li>Coffee</li>
      <li>Tea</li>
      <li>Coca Cola</li>
    </ol>
    
    <ol class="d">
      <li>Coffee</li>
      <li>Tea</li>
      <li>Coca Cola</li>
    </ol>
    
    </body>
    </html>