Web/CSS/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

/* 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 */

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 value	normal
Applies to	text elements
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

normal | [ fill || stroke || markers ]

Examples

Reversing the paint order of stroke and fill

SVG

<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

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

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

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2The definition of 'paint-order' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
paint-order	Chrome Full support 35	Edge Full support 17	Firefox Full support 60	IE No support No	Opera Full support 22	Safari Full support 8	WebView Android Full support 37	Chrome Android Full support 35	Firefox Android Full support 60	Opera Android Full support 22	Safari iOS Full support 8	Samsung Internet Android Full support 3.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

No support  

No support

paint-order by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.