negative

Summary

When defining custom counter styles, the negative descriptor lets the author alter the representations of negative counter values, by providing a way to specify symbols to be appended or prepended to the counter representation when the value is negative. If the counter value is negative, the symbol provided as value for the descriptor will be prepended to the counter representation; and a second symbol if specified, will be appended to the representation. The negative descriptor has effect only if the system value is symbolic, alphabetic, numeric, additive, or extends, if the extended counter style itself uses a negative sign. If the negative descriptor is specified for other systems that don't support negative counter values, then the descriptor is ignored.

Syntax

/* <symbol> values */
negative: "-";       /* Prepends '-' if value is negative */
negative: "(" ")";   /* Surrounds value by '(' and ')' if it is negative */

Values

First <symbol>

This symbol will be prepended to the representation when the counter is negative.

Second <symbol>

If present, this symbol will be appended to the representation when the counter is negative.

Formal syntax

<symbol> <symbol>?
where 
<symbol> = <string> | <image> | <ident>

Example

HTML Content

<ul class="list" start="-3">
    <li>One</li>
    <li>Two</li>
    <li>Three</li>
    <li>Four</li>
    <li>Five</li>
</ul>

CSS Content

@counter-style neg {
    system: numeric;
    symbols: "0" "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9";
    negative: "(-" ")";
}
.list {
    list-style: neg;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• list-style, list-style-image, list-style-position
• symbols(), the functional notation creating anonymous counter styles.