Docs4dev
Docs
css / latest / __after.html

::after

In CSS, ::after creates a pseudo-element that is the last child of the selected element. It is often used to add cosmetic content to an element with the content property. It is inline by default.

Try it

Note: The pseudo-elements generated by ::before and ::after are contained by the element's formatting box, and thus don't apply to replaced elements such as <img>, or to <br> elements.

Syntax

css

::after {
  content: /* value */;
  /* properties */
}

If the content property is not specified, has an invalid value, or has normal or none as a value, then the ::after pseudo-element is not rendered. It behaves as if display: none is set.

Note: CSS introduced the ::after notation (with two colons) to distinguish pseudo-classes from pseudo-elements. For backward compatibility, browsers also accept :after, introduced earlier.

Examples

Simple usage

Let's create two classes: one for boring paragraphs and one for exciting ones. We can use these classes to add pseudo-elements to the end of paragraphs.

HTML

html

<p class="boring-text">Here is some plain old boring text.</p>
<p>Here is some normal text that is neither boring nor exciting.</p>
<p class="exciting-text">Contributing to MDN is easy and fun.</p>

CSS

css

.exciting-text::after {
  content: " <- EXCITING!";
  color: green;
}

.boring-text::after {
  content: " <- BORING";
  color: red;
}

Result

Decorative example

We can style text or images in the content property almost any way we want.

HTML

html

<span class="ribbon">Look at the orange box after this text. </span>

CSS

css

.ribbon {
  background-color: #5bc8f7;
}

.ribbon::after {
  content: "This is a fancy orange box.";
  background-color: #ffba10;
  border-color: black;
  border-style: dotted;
}

Result

Tooltips

This example uses ::after, in conjunction with the attr() CSS expression and a data-descr custom data attribute, to create tooltips. No JavaScript is required!

We can also support keyboard users with this technique, by adding a tabindex of 0 to make each span keyboard focusable, and using a CSS :focus selector. This shows how flexible ::before and ::after can be, though for the most accessible experience a semantic disclosure widget created in some other way (such as with details and summary elements) is likely to be more appropriate.

HTML

html

<p>
  Here we have some
  <span tabindex="0" data-descr="collection of words and punctuation">
    text
  </span>
  with a few
  <span tabindex="0" data-descr="small popups that appear when hovering">
    tooltips</span
  >.
</p>

CSS

css

span[data-descr] {
  position: relative;
  text-decoration: underline;
  color: #00f;
  cursor: help;
}

span[data-descr]:hover::after,
span[data-descr]:focus::after {
  content: attr(data-descr);
  position: absolute;
  left: 0;
  top: 24px;
  min-width: 200px;
  border: 1px #aaaaaa solid;
  border-radius: 10px;
  background-color: #ffffcc;
  padding: 12px;
  color: #000000;
  font-size: 14px;
  z-index: 1;
}

Result

Accessibility concerns

Using an ::after pseudo-element to add content is discouraged, as it is not reliably accessible to screen readers.

Specifications

Specification
CSS Pseudo-Elements Module Level 4
# generated-content

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
::after 11 1212
1.5["Before Firefox 57, Firefox had a bug where ::after pseudo-elements were still generated, even if the content property value were set to normal or none.", "Before Firefox 3.5, only the CSS level 2 behavior of :after was supported, which disallowed position, float, list-style-* and some display properties."]
1		 98 74 44 ≤37≤37 1818
4["Before Firefox 57, Firefox had a bug where ::after pseudo-elements were still generated, even if the content property value were set to normal or none.", "Before Firefox 3.5, only the CSS level 2 behavior of :after was supported, which disallowed position, float, list-style-* and some display properties."]
4		 10.110.1 3.23.2 1.01.0
animation_and_transition_support 26 12 4 No 15 No 4.4 26 4 14 No 1.5

See also

© 2005–2023 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/::after