Transparent Text In HTML CSS (Simple Examples)

Welcome to a quick tutorial on creating transparent text in HTML and CSS. Once upon a time in the Stone Age of the Internet, transparency was a mystery. But today, it is very easy to achieve with just a single line of CSS.

Yes, that simple. Read on if you need detailed examples!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here to download. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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TUTORIAL VIDEO

 

1) OPACITY

<div class="demo">
  <p>100% Opaque</p>
  <p style="opacity:0.7">70% Opaque</p>
  <p style="opacity:0.5">50% Opaque</p>
  <p style="opacity:0.3">30% Opaque</p>
</div>

• opacity is a decimal value from 0 (invisible) to 1 (opaque).
• Captain Obvious to the rescue – opacity is 1 by default.
• We can still apply font size, weight, background color as usual.

 

2) TRANSPARENT COLOR

<div class="demo">
  <p style="color:rgb(255 0 0)">100% opaque, red.</p>
  <p style="color:rgb(0 255 0 / 0.7)">70% opaque, green.</p>
  <p style="color:rgb(0% 0% 100% / 50%)">50% opaque, blue.</p>
</div>

This is another way to create transparent text. It may be a little intimidating for beginners, but it’s actually straightforward:

• rgb stands for the 3 basic colors – Red, green, and blue.
• We are essentially mixing different amounts of RGB to create various colors here. There are 2 ways to “define RGB”:
  • A number from 0 to 255 – rgb(255 0 0) simply means “maximum amount of red, no green and blue”.
  • In percentage – rgb(0 0 100%) will mean “maximum amount of blue, no red and green”.
• As you can see from the above examples, we have a trailing / 0.7 and  / 50%. Shouldn’t be much of a mystery, that is the opacity.

 

 

3) OPACITY VS TRANSPARENT COLOR

<div class="demo" style="opacity: 0.3">
  Opacity will apply to the entire element.
</div>

<div class="demo" style="color:rgb(0 0 0 / 0.3)">
  Color will only apply to the text.
</div>

Some of you guys may be thinking “rgb is so stupid and complicated, I will just use opacity“. But no, take note of the stark difference here.

• opacity Will apply to the entire container. Yes, everything you put into the container – Text, images, videos, even background.
• color:rgb() Will only apply to the text. This is much cleaner, and will give you more controls.

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• Opacity – MDN
• RGB – MDN
• HTML Transparent Image – Code Boxx