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HTML + CSS: Numbered list with numbers inside of circles

I'm trying to create an ordered list in CSS + HTML that looks like this: CSS List Example

I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this. I've tried using list-image but then the numerals don't appear. I tried setting a background, but it won't appear behind the number if list-style-position is set to outside. I tried setting it with a background and list-style-position: inside, then putting the text inside the li in a div to align it, but no combination of floats, margins, etc worked without wrapping around the numeral.

This seems like something I've seen on plenty of web sites, but at the moment I can't seem to find a working example, nor is Googling for this giving me any results.

So, can anyone help me with this? How would you create the above using HTML+CSS, ideally without using JS, and definitely without using just images. This text needs to be selectable and copy/pasteable.

Because a commenter asked, here's the markup I have right now:

<ol>
  <li><span>List item one.</span></li>
  <li><span>List item two.</span></li>
  <li><span>List item three.</span></li>
</ol>

None of the CSS I've tried has even come close to working, so I'm not sure the value of sharing what I have currently. Here's one version that failed...

ol { display: block; list-style: decimal outside url('/images/lists/yellow-circle-18px.png'); }
ol li { width: 176px; margin-right: 20px; float: left; }
ol li span { display: block; }
Solution

  • The horizontal layout aspect of the question can be achieved using CSS float and/or display:inline-block;. These are well documented for this, as list elements are often used for creating drop-down menus using this technique, so I won't discuss it further here.

    The circled number aspect is a bit more tricky.

    It can't be achieved using standard list styles, unless you're prepared to use graphics, and hard-code the image name each one. This is quite an old-school approach, and I suspect it's not what you're looking for.

    One idea that popped into my head would be to use a font that has its numbers in circles, such as this one, and then simply style the <ol> element to use that font, and the <li> element to use your regular font. The down-side of this is that you'd have to keep your list below 10 items, and the user's browser would need to download a whole font just for that. Also, you would need to pick one that matched the other fonts on your site. Probably not an ideal solution, but it would work.

    A more practical solution would be to abandon the list style entirely (still use the same HTML markup, but set list-style:none;). The numbers would then be inserted using CSS's little-used :before and count() features.

    In your case, it would be along the following lines:

    ol ul:before {
    content: counter(mylist);
}

    This will give you the same numbered sequence. You would then need to add further styles to the selector above to give it a circle background, some colours, and a bit of margin. You would also need to style the <li> element somehow so that its entire text was indented from the number rather than wrapping below the number. I expect this could be done with display:inline-block; or similar.

    It might need a bit of experimentation, and I haven't given the complete answer, but the technique would definitely work.

    See quirksmode.org for a writeup and examples, along with a browser compatibility chart.

    And the browser compatibility chart gives a clue as to the one major down-side of this technique: It won't work in IE7 or earlier. It does work in IE8 though, and in all other browsers, so if you can live with IE7 users not seeing it (and there aren't that many of them these days), then it should be fine.