border-image

The border-image CSS property allows drawing an image on the borders of elements. This makes drawing complex looking widgets much simpler than it has been and removes the need for nine boxes in some cases. The border-image is used instead of the border styles given by the border-style properties. Though the specification requires that border-style must be present if border-image is used, some browsers may not implement this.

It is important to note that if the computed value of border-image-source, which can be set either by border-image-source or the shorthand border-image, is none, or if the image cannot be displayed, the border styles will be used.

Initial value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: border-image-source: none border-image-slice: 100% border-image-width: 1 border-image-outset: 0s border-image-repeat: stretch
Applies to	as each of the properties of the shorthand: border-image-outset: all elements, except internal table elements when border-collapse is collapse. It also applies to ::first-letter. border-image-repeat: all elements, except internal table elements when border-collapse is collapse. It also applies to ::first-letter. border-image-slice: all elements, except internal table elements when border-collapse is collapse. It also applies to ::first-letter. border-image-source: all elements, except internal table elements when border-collapse is collapse. It also applies to ::first-letter. border-image-width: all elements, except table elements when border-collapse is collapse. It also applies to ::first-letter. . It also applies to ::first-letter.
Inherited	no
Percentages	as each of the properties of the shorthand: border-image-slice: refer to the size of the border image border-image-width: refer to the width or height of the border image area
Media	visual
Computed value	as each of the properties of the shorthand: border-image-outset: as specified, but with relative lengths converted into absolute lengths border-image-repeat: as specified border-image-slice: one to four percentage(s) (as specified) or absolute length(s), plus the keyword fill if specified border-image-source: none or the image with its URI made absolute border-image-width: as specified, but with relative lengths converted into absolute lengths
Animation type	discrete
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

/* image-source | height | width | repeat */
border-image: url("/images/border.png") 30 30 repeat;
border-image: url("/images/border.png") 30 30 stretch;

Values

See the respective properties for the different values.

Formal syntax

<'border-image-source'> || <'border-image-slice'> [ / <'border-image-width'> | / <'border-image-width'>? / <'border-image-outset'> ]? || <'border-image-repeat'>

Examples

Bitmap

CSS content

#bitmap { 
  border: 30px solid transparent;
  padding: 20px;
  border-image: url("https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/4127/border.png") 30;
}

HTML content

<div id="bitmap">The image is stretched to fill the area.</div>

Gradient

CSS content

#gradient { 
  border: 30px solid;
  border-image: linear-gradient(red, yellow) 10;
  padding: 20px;
}

HTML content

<div id="gradient">The image is stretched to fill the area.</div>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3 The definition of 'border-image' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

[1] An earlier version of the specification was implemented, prefixed, in Gecko versions prior to 15 (Firefox 15.0 / Thunderbird 15.0 / SeaMonkey 2.12).

[2] Until Gecko 47.0 (Firefox 47.0 / Thunderbird 47.0 / SeaMonkey 2.44) SVGs without viewport were not sliced correctly (bug 619500). Starting from Gecko 48.0 (Firefox 48.0 / Thunderbird 48.0 / SeaMonkey 2.45) they are displayed the same like SVGs with viewport, though if the slices are not exactly 50%, they are incorrectly stretched (bug 1264809). This was fixed in Gecko 49.0 (Firefox 49.0 / Thunderbird 49.0 / SeaMonkey 2.46), though there's still an issue for SVGs without viewport when e10s is disabled (bug 1290782).

Also, small SVGs are incorrectly stretched, because percentages in border-image-slice are computed to integers instead of floats (bug 1284797).

In addition to the unprefixed support, Gecko 44.0 (Firefox 44.0 / Thunderbird 44.0 / SeaMonkey 2.41) added support for a -webkit prefixed version of the property for web compatibility reasons behind the preference layout.css.prefixes.webkit, defaulting to false. Since Gecko 49.0 (Firefox 49.0 / Thunderbird 49.0 / SeaMonkey 2.46) the preference defaults to true.

[3] For Opera, the prefixed property was added after the non-prefixed.