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Typography

Documentation and examples for Bootstrap typography, including global settings, headings, body text, lists, and more.

Global settings

Bootstrap sets basic global display, typography, and link styles. When more control is needed, check out the textual utility classes.

  • Use a native font stack that selects the best font-family for each OS and device.
  • For a more inclusive and accessible type scale, we use the browser’s default root font-size (typically 16px) so visitors can customize their browser defaults as needed.
  • Use the $font-family-base, $font-size-base, and $line-height-base attributes as our typographic base applied to the <body>.
  • Set the global link color via $link-color and apply link underlines only on :hover.
  • Use $body-bg to set a background-color on the <body> (#fff by default).

These styles can be found within _reboot.scss, and the global variables are defined in _variables.scss. Make sure to set $font-size-base in rem.

Headings

All HTML headings, <h1> through <h6>, are available.

Heading Example
<h1></h1> h1. Bootstrap heading
<h2></h2> h2. Bootstrap heading
<h3></h3> h3. Bootstrap heading
<h4></h4> h4. Bootstrap heading
<h5></h5> h5. Bootstrap heading
<h6></h6> h6. Bootstrap heading 
<h1>h1. Bootstrap heading</h1>
<h2>h2. Bootstrap heading</h2>
<h3>h3. Bootstrap heading</h3>
<h4>h4. Bootstrap heading</h4>
<h5>h5. Bootstrap heading</h5>
<h6>h6. Bootstrap heading</h6>

.h1 through .h6 classes are also available, for when you want to match the font styling of a heading but cannot use the associated HTML element.

h1. Bootstrap heading

h2. Bootstrap heading

h3. Bootstrap heading

h4. Bootstrap heading

h5. Bootstrap heading

h6. Bootstrap heading

<p class="h1">h1. Bootstrap heading</p>
<p class="h2">h2. Bootstrap heading</p>
<p class="h3">h3. Bootstrap heading</p>
<p class="h4">h4. Bootstrap heading</p>
<p class="h5">h5. Bootstrap heading</p>
<p class="h6">h6. Bootstrap heading</p>

Customizing headings

Use the included utility classes to recreate the small secondary heading text from Bootstrap 3.

Fancy display heading With faded secondary text 

<h3>
  Fancy display heading
  <small class="text-muted">With faded secondary text</small>
</h3>

Display headings

Traditional heading elements are designed to work best in the meat of your page content. When you need a heading to stand out, consider using a display heading—a larger, slightly more opinionated heading style. Keep in mind these headings are not responsive by default, but it’s possible to enable responsive font sizes.

Display 1
Display 2
Display 3
Display 4 
<h1 class="display-1">Display 1</h1>
<h1 class="display-2">Display 2</h1>
<h1 class="display-3">Display 3</h1>
<h1 class="display-4">Display 4</h1>

Lead

Make a paragraph stand out by adding .lead.

This is a lead paragraph. It stands out from regular paragraphs. 

<p class="lead">
  This is a lead paragraph. It stands out from regular paragraphs.
</p>

Inline text elements

Styling for common inline HTML5 elements.

You can use the mark tag to highlight text.

This line of text is meant to be treated as deleted text.

This line of text is meant to be treated as no longer accurate.

This line of text is meant to be treated as an addition to the document.

This line of text will render as underlined

This line of text is meant to be treated as fine print.

This line rendered as bold text.

This line rendered as italicized text.

<p>You can use the mark tag to <mark>highlight</mark> text.</p>
<p><del>This line of text is meant to be treated as deleted text.</del></p>
<p><s>This line of text is meant to be treated as no longer accurate.</s></p>
<p><ins>This line of text is meant to be treated as an addition to the document.</ins></p>
<p><u>This line of text will render as underlined</u></p>
<p><small>This line of text is meant to be treated as fine print.</small></p>
<p><strong>This line rendered as bold text.</strong></p>
<p><em>This line rendered as italicized text.</em></p>

.mark and .small classes are also available to apply the same styles as <mark> and <small> while avoiding any unwanted semantic implications that the tags would bring.

While not shown above, feel free to use <b> and <i> in HTML5. <b> is meant to highlight words or phrases without conveying additional importance while <i> is mostly for voice, technical terms, etc.

Text utilities

Change text alignment, transform, style, weight, and color with our text utilities and color utilities.

Abbreviations

Stylized implementation of HTML’s <abbr> element for abbreviations and acronyms to show the expanded version on hover. Abbreviations have a default underline and gain a help cursor to provide additional context on hover and to users of assistive technologies.

Add .initialism to an abbreviation for a slightly smaller font-size.

attr

HTML

<p><abbr title="attribute">attr</abbr></p>
<p><abbr title="HyperText Markup Language" class="initialism">HTML</abbr></p>

Blockquotes

For quoting blocks of content from another source within your document. Wrap <blockquote class="blockquote"> around any HTML as the quote.

A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.

<blockquote class="blockquote">
  <p class="mb-0">A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.</p>
</blockquote>

Naming a source

Add a <footer class="blockquote-footer"> for identifying the source. Wrap the name of the source work in <cite>.

A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.

Someone famous in Source Title
<blockquote class="blockquote">
  <p class="mb-0">A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.</p>
  <footer class="blockquote-footer">Someone famous in <cite title="Source Title">Source Title</cite></footer>
</blockquote>

Alignment

Use text utilities as needed to change the alignment of your blockquote.

A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.

Someone famous in Source Title
<blockquote class="blockquote text-center">
  <p class="mb-0">A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.</p>
  <footer class="blockquote-footer">Someone famous in <cite title="Source Title">Source Title</cite></footer>
</blockquote>

A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.

Someone famous in Source Title
<blockquote class="blockquote text-left">
  <p class="mb-0">A well-known quote, contained in a blockquote element.</p>
  <footer class="blockquote-footer">Someone famous in <cite title="Source Title">Source Title</cite></footer>
</blockquote>

Lists

Unstyled

Remove the default list-style and left margin on list items (immediate children only). This only applies to immediate children list items, meaning you will need to add the class for any nested lists as well.

  • This is a list.
  • It appears completely unstyled.
  • Structurally, it's still a list.
  • However, this style only applies to immediate child elements.
  • Nested lists:
    • are unaffected by this style
    • will still show a bullet
    • and have appropriate left margin
  • This may still come in handy in some situations.
<ul class="list-unstyled">
  <li>This is a list.</li>
  <li>It appears completely unstyled.</li>
  <li>Structurally, it's still a list.</li>
  <li>However, this style only applies to immediate child elements.</li>
  <li>Nested lists:
    <ul>
      <li>are unaffected by this style</li>
      <li>will still show a bullet</li>
      <li>and have appropriate left margin</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>This may still come in handy in some situations.</li>
</ul>

Inline

Remove a list’s bullets and apply some light margin with a combination of two classes, .list-inline and .list-inline-item.

  • This is a list item.
  • And another one.
  • But they're displayed inline.
<ul class="list-inline">
  <li class="list-inline-item">This is a list item.</li>
  <li class="list-inline-item">And another one.</li>
  <li class="list-inline-item">But they're displayed inline.</li>
</ul>

Description list alignment

Align terms and descriptions horizontally by using our grid system’s predefined classes (or semantic mixins). For longer terms, you can optionally add a .text-truncate class to truncate the text with an ellipsis.

Description lists
A description list is perfect for defining terms.
Term

Definition for the term.

And some more placeholder definition text.

Another term
This definition is short, so no extra paragraphs or anything.
Truncated term is truncated
This can be useful when space is tight. Adds an ellipsis at the end.
Nesting
Nested definition list
I heard you like definition lists. Let me put a definition list inside your definition list.
<dl class="row">
  <dt class="col-sm-3">Description lists</dt>
  <dd class="col-sm-9">A description list is perfect for defining terms.</dd>

  <dt class="col-sm-3">Term</dt>
  <dd class="col-sm-9">
    <p>Definition for the term.</p>
    <p>And some more placeholder definition text.</p>
  </dd>

  <dt class="col-sm-3">Another term</dt>
  <dd class="col-sm-9">This definition is short, so no extra paragraphs or anything.</dd>

  <dt class="col-sm-3 text-truncate">Truncated term is truncated</dt>
  <dd class="col-sm-9">This can be useful when space is tight. Adds an ellipsis at the end.</dd>

  <dt class="col-sm-3">Nesting</dt>
  <dd class="col-sm-9">
    <dl class="row">
      <dt class="col-sm-4">Nested definition list</dt>
      <dd class="col-sm-8">I heard you like definition lists. Let me put a definition list inside your definition list.</dd>
    </dl>
  </dd>
</dl>

Responsive font sizes

As of v4.3.0, Bootstrap ships with the option to enable responsive font sizes, allowing text to scale more naturally across device and viewport sizes. RFS can be enabled by changing the $enable-responsive-font-sizes Sass variable to true and recompiling Bootstrap.

To support RFS, we use a Sass mixin to replace our normal font-size properties. Responsive font sizes will be compiled into calc() functions with a mix of rem and viewport units to enable the responsive scaling behavior. More about RFS and its configuration can be found on its GitHub repository.