Is there any difference between "lower-latin" and "lower-alpha" values of "list-style-type" CSS property?

Question

Both list-style-type: lower-latin and list-style-type: lower-alpha results in list like this:

a. item1
b. item2
c. item3
...

Is there any difference between these two values, or they are exactly the same?

Zahavi

Answer 1

The W3C doesn't note any difference. Lower-latin could be a new attribute. I'm not sure, but they display the same, so I'd say they are the same.

Note that IE8 and earlier versions won't display lower-latin.

QuirksMode doesn't provide a definitive answer.

If anyone has any ideas, let us know? Seems strange to have two attributes that appear to do the same.

Maybe they're for different character sets?

See also:

• http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_list-style-type.asp
• http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/tryit.asp?filename=trycss_list-style-type_ex

Handbarrow

Answer 2

W3C section about this is here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/PR-CSS2-19980324/lists.html#list-props

Quoted in part from the above link location (note or):

Alphabetic systems are specified with:

lower-latin or lower-alpha
    Lower case ascii letters (a, b, c, ... z). 
upper-latin or upper-alpha
    Upper case ascii letters (A, B, C, ... Z). 

Plenty

Answer 3

probabely the expression "lower-alpha" is showing the listing points in the language in which the system is set. This is not necessarily Latin. But to display the listing points, regardless of the language setting in Latin is probably provided "lower-latin". I don't have another explanation.

Denny

I tried forcing different languages with the lang attribute but there don't seem to be any differences, even for Greek (lang=en). – Becnel

Answer 4

They are synonymous. See description from W3C:

Alphabetic systems are specified with:

lower-latin or lower-alpha
  Lower case ascii letters (a, b, c, ... z).
...

Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/PR-CSS2-19980324/lists.html#list-props

HT: to @Hitch above.

Tace