CSS pause-before

The CSS pause-before property is used in speech media to specify prosodic boundary (a pause) before an element.

The pause-before property can help your listeners comprehend the content by allowing you to provide extra "space" before certain elements. For example, adding a slight pause before a main heading could help distinguish the heading from the previous content while also communicating the significance of the heading.

The pause-before property can be seen as the speech media equivalent to the margin-top property in visual media.

Also see pause and pause-after.

Syntax

Possible Values

time: Expresses the pause in absolute time units (for example 50ms). Only non-negative values are allowed.
none: Equivalent to 0ms (no prosodic break is produced by the speech processor).
x-weak, weak, medium, strong, and x-strong: These values express the pause by the strength of the prosodic break in speech output. The exact time will depend on the output device/user agent being used.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial: Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.
inherit: Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.
unset: This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

General Information

Initial Value: none
Applies To: All elements.
Inherited?: No
Media: Speech

Example Code

Official Specifications

CSS Speech Module (W3C Candidate Recommendation 20 March 2012)
CSS2.1 (W3C Recommendation 07 June 2011)

"Pause" vs "Rest"

CSS3 includes "pause" properties and "rest" properties. Pauses are defined with the pause, pause-before, and pause-after properties. Rests are defined with rest, rest-after, and rest-before.

These "pause" and "rest" properties work in a similar way, however, they differ in where they're inserted.

The "pause" properties are placed outside of any cues that have been specified (i.e. using the cue, cue-before, or cue-after properties). So for example, any "pause before" is inserted between the preceding content and any "cue before". Likewise, any "pause after" is inserted between any "cue after" and the content that follows.

The "rest" properties are placed inside any cues. Therefore, a "rest before" will be inserted between any "cue before" and its subsequent content (and vice-versa for any "rest after").

CSS2

Note that in CSS2, the "pause" properties were placed inside any cues (like the CSS3 "rest" properties), however, this was changed in CSS3 to the placement mentioned above.