CSS font-variant-east-asian

The font-variant-east-asian property allows you to control glyph substitution and sizing in East Asian text.

The font-variant-east-asian property is one of the properties introduced in CSS3 for enabling various font related features that can improve the appearance of the text on the page. The font-variant-east-asian property deals specifically with glyph substitution and sizing in East Asian text such as Japanese and Chinese.

Syntax

The syntax of the font-variant-east-asian property is:

These values are explained in more detail below.

Possible Values

normal

Specifies that none of the features below are enabled.

east-asian-variant-values

This can be one of the following values:

normal: None of the features listed below are enabled.
jis78: Enables rendering of JIS78 forms (OpenType feature: jp78).
jis83: Enables rendering of JIS83 forms (OpenType feature: jis83).
jis90: Enables rendering of JIS90 forms (OpenType feature: jis90).
jis04: Enables rendering of JIS04 forms (OpenType feature: jis04).
simplified: Enables rendering of simplified forms (OpenType feature: smpl).
traditional: Enables rendering of traditional forms (OpenType feature: trad).

east-asian-width-values

This can be one of the following values:

full-width: Enables rendering of full-width variants (OpenType feature: fwid).
proportional-width: Enables rendering of proportionally-spaced variants (OpenType feature: pwid).

ruby

Enables display of ruby variant glyphs (OpenType feature: ruby).

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: normal
Applies To: All elements
Inherited?: Yes
Media: Visual
Animatable?: No

Example Code

Official Specifications

CSS Fonts Module Level 3 (W3C Candidate Recommendation 3 October 2013)

Vendor Prefixes

For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.

This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.

The major browser manufacturers generally strive to adhere to the W3C specifications, and when they support a non-prefixed property, they typically remove the prefixed version. Also, W3C advises vendors to remove their prefixes for properties that reach Candidate Recommendation status.

Many developers use Autoprefixer, which is a postprocessor for CSS. Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to your CSS so that you don't need to. It also removes old, unnecessary prefixes from your CSS.

You can also use Autoprefixer with preprocessors such as Less and Sass.