Tooltip with a triangle

Question

I have created a jsFiddle for this question.

a.tip {
    position: relative;
}

a.tip span {
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
    top: -5px;
    left: 60px;
    width: 125px;
    padding: 5px;
    z-index: 100;
    background: #000;
    color: #fff;
    -moz-border-radius: 5px; /* this works only in camino/firefox */
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px; /* this is just for Safari */
}

a:hover.tip {
    font-size: 99%; /* this is just for IE */
}

a:hover.tip span {
    display: block;
}
        

<center><a href="http://google.com/" class="tip">Link!<span>Hi its me!</span></a></center>

Basically I have a tooltip on my site, and it appears to the right of my link. But on the left hand side of the black box I would like a triangle attached to the box pointing to the link, is it possible to do this using only CSS? just like this but to the left

Answer 1

You can do it with CSS, by using the css triangle trick

a.tip span:before{
    content:'';
    display:block;
    width:0;
    height:0;
    position:absolute;

    border-top: 8px solid transparent;
    border-bottom: 8px solid transparent;
    border-right:8px solid black;
    left:-8px;

    top:7px;
}

Demo at http://jsfiddle.net/dAutM/7/

---

live snippet

a.tip {
  position: relative;
}

a.tip span {
  display: none;
  position: absolute;
  top: -5px;
  left: 60px;
  width: 125px;
  padding: 5px;
  z-index: 100;
  background: #000;
  color: #fff;
  -moz-border-radius: 5px;
  /* this works only in camino/firefox */
  -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
  /* this is just for Safari */
}

a.tip span:before {
  content: '';
  display: block;
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
  position: absolute;
  border-top: 8px solid transparent;
  border-bottom: 8px solid transparent;
  border-right: 8px solid black;
  left: -8px;
  top: 7px;
}

a:hover.tip {
  font-size: 99%;
  /* this is just for IE */
}

a:hover.tip span {
  display: block;
}

<center><a href="http://google.com/" class="tip">Link!<span>Hi its me!</span></a></center>