font-style

The font-style CSS property lets you select italic or oblique faces within a font-family. Italic forms are generally cursive in nature, usually using less horizontal space than their unstyled counterparts, while oblique faces are usually just sloped versions of the regular face. Both italic and oblique faces are simulated by artificially sloping the glyphs of the regular face (see font-synthesis for control over this).

Initial value	normal
Applies to	all elements. It also applies to ::first-letter and ::first-line.
Inherited	yes
Media	visual
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

font-style: normal;
font-style: italic;
font-style: oblique;

/* Global values */
font-style: inherit;
font-style: initial;
font-style: unset;

Values

normal

Selects a font that is classified as normal within a font-family.

italic

Selects a font that is labeled italic, or, if no italic version of the face is available, one labeled oblique is selected instead.

oblique

Selects a font that is labeled oblique, or, if no oblique version of the face is available, one labeled italic is selected instead.

Formal syntax

normal | italic | oblique

Example

The example shows the different font-style values. The CSS looks like this:

<p class="normal">This paragraph is normal.</p>
<p class="italic">This paragraph is italic.</p>
<p class="oblique">This paragraph is oblique.</p> 

.normal {
  font-style: normal;
}

.italic {
  font-style: italic;
}

.oblique {
  font-style: oblique;
}

Note that not all font have distinct faces for oblique and italic, if this is not the case, browsers are simulating the missing one by using the face that is present. An example of rendering of a font with both faces:

Specific​ations

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Fonts Module Level 3 The definition of 'font-style' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	No change
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1) The definition of 'font-style' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change
CSS Level 1 The definition of 'font-style' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

[1] Before Firefox 44, Gecko didn't make a different between oblique and italic. Since then, it uses the correct face, if available.