Lists

A list item has two parts: marker and content.

The content part is rendered inside the list item's border box, and is styled the same way as a normal block, such as div or p element.

The marker positioning is determined by the list-style-position property and is styled using the ::marker pseudo-element.

List marker position

List markers are rendered outside the list item in the left margin area by default. If the CSS property list-style-position has value inside, the marker is rendered as the first inline box inside the list item.

CSS

ol { 
    padding-left: 1cm;
    border: solid 2px darkgreen
}
li { border: solid 1px black } 
li.inside { list-style-position: inside }
li.outside { list-style-position: outside }

Output

  1. This list item sets the list-style-position to inside, so the list marker is rendered inside the principal box of li.
  2. This list item sets the list-style-position to outside, so the list marker is rendered outside the principal box of li.

When the marker position is outside, it is rendered outside the li principal box. If you want the marker to appear inside the principal box of ol, make sure to give ol enough left padding or li enough left margin.

List marker type

Different list marker types can be chosen by setting the CSS property list-style-type to different values: disc | hyphen | decimal | lower-alpha | ...

list-style-type applies to list items and determines the type of marker that they receive. The following table shows examples of the various list style types (also supported are octal, binary, lower-hexadecimal and upper-hexadecimal).

decimal 1, 2, 3, ...
decimal-leading-zero 01, 02, 03, ... 09, 10, 11, ...
lower-alpha
lower-latin		 a, b, c, ... z, aa, ab, ...
upper-alpha
upper-latin		 A, B, C, ... Z, AA, AB, ...
lower-roman i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, ...
upper-roman I, II, III, IV, V, VI, ...
asterisks *, **, ***, ...

CSS

li.upper_alpha { list-style-type: upper-alpha }
li.lower_roman { list-style-type: lower-roman }

Output

  1. The marker type of this list item is upper-alpha.
  2. The marker type of this list item is lower-roman.

List marker style

The ::marker pseudo-element can be used to style the list item marker, giving control over its content, width, alignment and so on.

CSS

li::marker { width: 2.4cm }
li.left::marker { text-align: left }
li.center::marker { text-align: center }
li.right::marker { text-align: right }
li.text_marker::marker { 
    content: "Number " counter(list-item) 
} 
li.image_marker::marker { 
    content: url("../../image/prince.jpg") 
}

Output

Marker example