How to italicize text backward?

Question

I would like to italicize text backwards or the left the opposite way of this current text. Is this possible to do in HTML/CSS or even with Javascript/jQuery?

Hermitage

+1 for an interesting question, but I have my doubts that you'll find a satisfactory solution. – Vigilantism

Answer 1

I think this might be what you're looking for? jsFiddle
Play with the code a bit. Otherwise pretty sure it's impossible. You CAN do this in image editing software, such as Paintshop, etc.

#skewed {
font: 21px Impact, sans-serif;
text-align: center;
background: #ccc
}
#skewed {
 width:             350px;
 height:            140px;

 -moz-transform:    skew(-5deg, -5deg);
 -o-transform:      skew(-5deg, -5deg);
 -webkit-transform: skew(-5deg, -5deg);
 transform:         skew(-5deg, -5deg);
}

<div id="skewed">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque eu metus nisi. Integer non adipiscing massa. Etiam et diam magna. Mauris sit amet arcu dui, a malesuada erat.</div>

 <!--[if IE]>
 <style>
 /*
 * The following two rules are for IE only and
 * should be wrapped in conditional comments.
 * The -ms-filter rule should be on one line 
 * and always *before* the filter rule if
 * used in the same rule.
 */

#skewed {

  /* IE8+ - must be on one line, unfortunately */ 
 -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(M11=1, 
 M12=-0.08748866352592455,M21=-0.08748866352592455, M22=1, 
 SizingMethod='auto expand')";

 /* IE6 and 7 */ 
 filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(
        M11=1,
        M12=-0.08748866352592455,
        M21=-0.08748866352592455,
        M22=1,
        SizingMethod='auto expand');


/*
 * To make the transform-origin be the middle of
 * the object.    Note: These numbers
 * are approximations.  For more accurate results,
 * use Internet Explorer with this tool.
 */
  margin-left: -9px; 
  margin-top: -18px;

}
</style>
<![endif]-->​    

Vagrancy

Thanks for the help and information. Not quite what I am looking for but the best solution I have seen other than using Photoshop or some program to create the backward italics. Thanks Again! – Hermitage

Answer 2

I updated jos' demo to use jQuery to wrap each letter in a span, then transform each letter using the example from Mozilla's transform docs & a demo:

HTML

<div id="skewed">
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque eu metus nisi.
  Integer non adipiscing massa. Etiam et diam magna. Mauris sit amet arcu dui, a
  malesuada erat.
</div>

jQuery

// html function requires jQuery 1.4+
$('#skewed').html(function (i, h) {
    h = h.replace(/\s+/g, '\u00a0').split('');
    return '<span>' + h.join('</span><span>') + '</span>';
});

CSS

#skewed {
    font: 24px Georgia, sans-serif;
    background: #ccc;
    padding: 10px 20px;
}
#skewed span {
    display: inline-block;
    /* see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/transform */
    -webkit-transform:  skewx(20deg);
          -o-transform: skewx(20deg);
             transform: skewx(20deg);
}

Courcy

Answer 3

You might be able to rotate the text.

http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/css-text-rotation

Seems difficult, but you will probably have to do this on a per-character basis. Not quite the intended skewing effect, but is close.

Biogenesis

@arxanas, Agreed. :-D Just throwing it out there as a possible option if there were no others. Looks like the skew method posted by jos will work fine. – Biogenesis

Answer 4

I think the only way would be to using a special font that is tilted backwards.

Therrien

Answer 5

Your only real option I believe would be to find (or create) a font that has backward italic letterforms and embed it into your webpage via a custom @font-face.

For that you can use one of many online font-face generators, such as FontSquirrel

Desex

Well, yes. You would still need to embed it, as none of your users would have the edited font on their system. – Desex

Sure -- that what I was meaning. I was just saying that you didn't have to actually create a font from scratch. – Scoter

Answer 6

Use and embed into your website a left-leaning italic compatible font, like this one. There are free alternatives here.

Sundsvall