CanvasRenderingContext2D.textBaseline

The CanvasRenderingContext2D.textBaseline property of the Canvas 2D API specifies the current text baseline being used when drawing text.

Syntax

ctx.textBaseline = "top" || "hanging" || "middle" || "alphabetic" || "ideographic" || "bottom";

Options

Possible values:

top

The text baseline is the top of the em square.

hanging

The text baseline is the hanging baseline.

middle

The text baseline is the middle of the em square.

alphabetic

The text baseline is the normal alphabetic baseline.

ideographic

The text baseline is the ideographic baseline; this is the bottom of the body of the characters, if the main body of characters protrudes beneath the alphabetic baseline.

bottom

The text baseline is the bottom of the bounding box. This differs from the ideographic baseline in that the ideographic baseline doesn't consider descenders.

The default value is alphabetic.

Examples

Using the textBaseline property

This is just a simple code snippet using the textBaseline property to set a different text baseline setting.

HTML

<canvas id="canvas"></canvas>

JavaScript

var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

ctx.font = '48px serif';
ctx.textBaseline = 'hanging';
ctx.strokeText('Hello world', 0, 100);

Edit the code below and see your changes update live in the canvas:

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of 'CanvasRenderingContext2D.textBaseline' in that specification.	Living Standard

Browser compatibility

See also

• The interface defining it, CanvasRenderingContext2D.