Changing the highlight color when selecting text in an HTML text input

Question

I've been looking for this throughout the web and can't even find anyone else even asking this, let alone a solution...

Is there a way to change the color of the highlight area within a text input when text is selected? Not the highlight border or the background, but the portion that appears around the text when you have the text actually selected.

Lonnie

I would recommend, that if you use text-shadow, you should be really careful with this, as described here, jqui.net/tips-tricks/highlight-text-and-common-design-failure and also here welcomebrand.co.uk/thoughts/… :) – Hegemony

Answer 1

Thanks for the links, but it does seem as if the actual text highlighting just isn't exposed.

As far as the actual issue at hand, I ended up opting for a different approach by eliminating the need for a text input altogether and using innerHTML with some JavaScript. Not only does it get around the text highlighting, it actually looks much cleaner.

This granular of a tweak to an HTML form control is just another good argument for eliminating form controls altogether. Haha!

Lonnie

you could use HTML5 content editable tag on an element to create the same effect with the ::selection CSS, although this won't work with older browsers – Whisk

@Whisk Content editable is surprisingly effective for older browsers, it has worked since IE 5.5. – Vassaux

Check out Saeed em's answer, covers you all the way – Denna

Answer 2

If you are looking for this:

Here is the link:

http://css-tricks.com/overriding-the-default-text-selection-color-with-css/

Dispose

That's not exactly what I'm looking for, though it's definitely a nice thing to know. I need to do that but inside of a text input box. I tried applying the code from the examples to an input and that didn't work. – Lonnie

@Eric: I am afraid it can't be done inside the textbox as i have never come across such thing, may be some else has. – Dispose

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – Archuleta

Answer 3

this is the code.

/*** Works on common browsers ***/
::selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

/*** Mozilla based browsers ***/
::-moz-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

/***For Other Browsers ***/
::-o-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

::-ms-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

/*** For Webkit ***/
::-webkit-selection {
    background-color: #352e7e;
    color: #fff;
}

Raffish

Nice, except this doesn't answer the question, of course. – Lister

Answer 4

I realise this is an old question but for anyone who does come across it this can be done using contenteditable as shown in this JSFiddle.

Kudos to Alex who mentioned this in the comments (I didn't see that until now!)

Ganges

OMG browsers are soo stupid to not support this out off the box! – Whiffen

Answer 5

All answers here are correct when it comes to the ::selection pseudo element, and how it works. However, the question does in fact specifically ask how to use it on text inputs.

The only way to do that is to apply the rule via a parent of the input (any parent for that matter):

.parent ::-webkit-selection, [contenteditable]::-webkit-selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

.parent ::-moz-selection, [contenteditable]::-moz-selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

.parent ::selection, [contenteditable]::selection {
	background: #ffb7b7;
}

/* Aesthetics */
input, [contenteditable] {
  border:1px solid black;
  display:inline-block;
  width: 150px;
  height: 20px;
  line-height: 20px;
  padding: 3px;
}

<span class="parent"><input type="text" value="Input" /></span>
<span contenteditable>Content Editable</span>

Mlle

Answer 6

Here is the rub:

    ::selection {
      background: #ffb7b7; /* WebKit/Blink Browsers /
    }
    ::-moz-selection {
      background: #ffb7b7; / Gecko Browsers */
    }

Within the selection selector, color and background are the only properties that work. What you can do for some extra flair, is change the selection color for different paragraphs or different sections of the page.

All I did was use different selection color for paragraphs with different classes:

    p.red::selection {
      background: #ffb7b7;
    }
    p.red::-moz-selection {
      background: #ffb7b7;
    }
    p.blue::selection {
      background: #a8d1ff;
    }
    p.blue::-moz-selection {
      background: #a8d1ff;
    }
    p.yellow::selection {
      background: #fff2a8;
    }
    p.yellow::-moz-selection {
      background: #fff2a8;
    }

Note how the selectors are not combined, even though >the style block is doing the same thing. It doesn't work if you combine them:

<pre>/* Combining like this WILL NOT WORK */
p.yellow::selection,
p.yellow::-moz-selection {
  background: #fff2a8;
}</pre>

That's because browsers ignore the entire selector if there is a part of it they don't understand or is invalid. There is some exceptions to this (IE 7?) but not in relation to these selectors.

DEMO

LINK WHERE INFO IS FROM

Foumart

Answer 7

@ Mike Eng,

On selecting the text background color, text color can be changed with the help of ::selection, note that ::selection works in in chrome, to make that work in firefox based browsers try this one ::-moz-selection

Try the following snippet of code in reset.css or the css page where exactly you want to apply the effect.

::selection{
   //Works only for the chrome browsers
   background-color: #CFCFCF; //This turns the background color to Gray
   color: #000; // This turns the selected font color to Black
}

::-moz-selection{
   //Works for the firefox based browsers
   background-color: #CFCFCF; //This turns the background color to Gray
   color: #000; // This turns the selected font color to Black
}

The above code will work even in the input boxes too.

Apospory

Answer 8

It seems like when you define the border inside of a focus pseudo element style declaration it uses that instead of the normal blue border. Using that you can define a style that is exactly the same as the element border.

input:focus, textarea:focus {
    border:1px solid gray;
}

#textarea  {
  position:absolute;
  top:10px;
  left:10px;
  right:10px;
  width:calc(100% - 20px);
  height:160px;
  display:inline-block;
  margin-top:-0.2em;
}

<textarea id="textarea">yo</textarea>

Here is a modified border style:

input:focus, textarea:focus {
    border:2px dotted red;
}

#textarea  {
  position:absolute;
  top:10px;
  left:10px;
  right:10px;
  width:calc(100% - 20px);
  height:160px;
  display:inline-block;
  margin-top:-0.2em;
}

<textarea id="textarea">yo</textarea>

Titer

Answer 9

Try this code to use:

/* For Mozile Firefox Browser */

::-moz-selection { background-color: #4CAF50; }

/* For Other Browser*/
::selection { background-color: #4CAF50; }

Euplastic

This adds nothing to the existing answer by Conspiria. – Archuleta

Answer 10

I guess this can help :

selection styles

It's possible to define color and background for text the user selects.

Try it below. If you select something and it looks like this, your browser supports selection styles.

This is the paragraph with normal ::selection.

This is the paragraph with ::-moz-selection.

This is the paragraph with ::-webkit-selection.

Testsheet:

p.normal::selection {
  background:#cc0000;
  color:#fff;
}

p.moz::-moz-selection {
  background:#cc0000;
  color:#fff;
}

p.webkit::-webkit-selection {
  background:#cc0000;
  color:#fff;
}

Quoted from Quirksmode

Legg

But does this work inside a text input field (as opposed to a p tag), as the OP asked? – Hyacinthhyacintha