Create tooltips with CSS.
Basic Tooltip #
Create a tooltip that appears when the user moves the mouse over an element:
<style>
/* Tooltip container */
.tooltip {
position: relative;
display: inline-block;
border-bottom: 1px dotted black; /* If you want dots under the hoverable text */
}
/* Tooltip text */
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
visibility: hidden;
width: 120px;
background-color: black;
color: #fff;
text-align: center;
padding: 5px 0;
border-radius: 6px;
/* Position the tooltip text - see examples below! */
position: absolute;
z-index: 1;
}
/* Show the tooltip text when you mouse over the tooltip container */
.tooltip:hover .tooltiptext {
visibility: visible;
}
</style>
<div class="tooltip">Hover over me
<span class="tooltiptext">Tooltip text</span>
</div>
Example Explained #
HTML: Use a container element (like
) and add the "tooltip"
class to it. When the user mouse over this
, it will show the tooltip text.
The tooltip text is placed inside an inline element (like ) with class="tooltiptext"
.
CSS: The tooltip
class use position:relative
, which is needed to position the tooltip text (position:absolute
). Note: See examples below on how to position the tooltip.
The tooltiptext
class holds the actual tooltip text. It is hidden by default, and will be visible on hover (see below). We have also added some basic styles to it: 120px width, black background color, white text color, centered text, and 5px top and bottom padding.
The CSS border-radius
property is used to add rounded corners to the tooltip text.
The :hover
selector is used to show the tooltip text when the user moves the mouse over the
with class="tooltip"
.
#
Positioning Tooltips #
In this example, the tooltip is placed to the right (left:105%
) of the “hoverable” text (
). Also note that top:-5px
is used to place it in the middle of its container element. We use the number 5 because the tooltip text has a top and bottom padding of 5px. If you increase its padding, also increase the value of the top
property to ensure that it stays in the middle (if this is something you want). The same applies if you want the tooltip placed to the left.
Right Tooltip #
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
top: -5px;
left: 105%;
}
Left Tooltip #
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
top: -5px;
right: 105%;
}
If you want the tooltip to appear on top or on the bottom, see examples below. Note that we use the margin-left
property with a value of minus 60 pixels. This is to center the tooltip above/below the hoverable text. It is set to the half of the tooltip’s width (120/2 = 60).
Top Tooltip #
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
width: 120px;
bottom: 100%;
left: 50%;
margin-left: -60px; /* Use half of the width (120/2 = 60), to center the tooltip */
}
Bottom Tooltip #
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
width: 120px;
top: 100%;
left: 50%;
margin-left: -60px; /* Use half of the width (120/2 = 60), to center the tooltip */
}
Tooltip Arrows #
To create an arrow that should appear from a specific side of the tooltip, add “empty” content after tooltip, with the pseudo-element class ::after
together with the content
property. The arrow itself is created using borders. This will make the tooltip look like a speech bubble.
This example demonstrates how to add an arrow to the bottom of the tooltip:
Bottom Arrow #
.tooltip .tooltiptext::after {
content: " ";
position: absolute;
top: 100%; /* At the bottom of the tooltip */
left: 50%;
margin-left: -5px;
border-width: 5px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: black transparent transparent transparent;
}
Note: The border-width
property specifies the size of the arrow. If you change this, also change the margin-left
value to the same. This will keep the arrow centered.
The border-color
is used to transform the content into an arrow. We set the top border to black, and the rest to transparent. If all sides were black, you would end up with a black square box.
This example demonstrates how to add an arrow to the top of the tooltip. Notice that we set the bottom border color this time:
Top Arrow #
.tooltip .tooltiptext::after {
content: " ";
position: absolute;
bottom: 100%; /* At the top of the tooltip */
left: 50%;
margin-left: -5px;
border-width: 5px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: transparent transparent black transparent;
}
This example demonstrates how to add an arrow to the left of the tooltip:
Left Arrow #
.tooltip .tooltiptext::after {
content: " ";
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
right: 100%; /* To the left of the tooltip */
margin-top: -5px;
border-width: 5px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: transparent black transparent transparent;
}
This example demonstrates how to add an arrow to the right of the tooltip:
Right Arrow #
.tooltip .tooltiptext::after {
content: " ";
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 100%; /* To the right of the tooltip */
margin-top: -5px;
border-width: 5px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: transparent transparent transparent black;
}
Fade In Tooltips (Animation) #
If you want to fade in the tooltip text when it is about to be visible, you can use the CSS transition
property together with the opacity
property, and go from being completely invisible to 100% visible, in a number of specified seconds (1 second in our example):
Example #
.tooltip .tooltiptext {
opacity: 0;
transition: opacity 1s;
}
.tooltip:hover .tooltiptext {
opacity: 1;
}