user-select

Summary

Controls the visible highlighting of selections of text and elements. It is possible to blind out selection completely or to allow the selection of text only.

Overview table

Initial value

all

Applies to

Visible elements

Inherited

Yes

Media

visual

Computed value
:

Animatable

No

CSS Object Model Property
:

Syntax

• user-select: all
• user-select: element
• user-select: none
• user-select: text

Values

none

None of the descendants of the element can be selected, neither text nor images.

text

Only text of the element and its descendants can be selected.

all

Default. Everything, text and images, can be selected.

element

Only specified elements can be selected. Only supported in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Examples

Deactivate selection of text for elements with the class no-select.

.no-select {
    user-select: none;
}

View live example

Usage

 Needs vendor prefixes.

Notes

Also works on mobile devices to suppress selection by touch and hold.

Related specifications

User Interface for CSS3

W3C Working Draft

See also

Related articles

CSS Attributes

• background-blend-mode

• background-position

• break-before

• height

• list-style

• list-style-position

• text-overflow-ellipsis

• text-overflow-mode

• text-rendering

• user-select

• equality

• Attribute selector

• hyphen

• prefix

• substring

• suffix

• baseline-shift

• JavaScript animation

Related pages

• IE Test Drive: User-SelectIE Test Drive: User-Select
• [1][1]

Attributions

• Microsoft Developer Network: [Windows Internet Explorer API reference Article]