Introduction

Pseudo-elements, just like pseudo-classes, are added to a CSS selectors but instead of describing a special state, they allow you to scope and style certain parts of an html element.

For example, the ::first-letter pseudo-element targets only the first letter of a block element specified by the selector.

Syntax

• selector::pseudo-element {property: value}

Parameters

pseudo-element | Description | ––––––– | ———– |::after | Insert content after the content of an element |::before | Insert content before the content of an element |::first-letter | Selects the first letter of each element |::first-line | Selects the first line of each element |::selection | Matches the portion of an element that is selected by a user |::backdrop | Used to create a backdrop that hides the underlying document for an element in the top layer’s stack |::placeholder | Allows you to style the placeholder text of a form element (Experimental) |::marker | For applying list-style attributes on a given element (Experimental) |::spelling-error | Represents a text segment which the browser has flagged as incorrectly spelled (Experimental) |::grammar-error | Represents a text segment which the browser has flagged as grammatically incorrect (Experimental) |

Remarks

• Sometimes you will see double colons (::) instead of just one (:). This is a way to separate pseudo-classes from pseudo-elements, but some older browsers like Internet Explorer 8 only supports single colon (:) for pseudo-elements.
• One can use only one pseudo-element in a selector. It must appear after the simple selectors in the statement.
• Pseudo-elements are not a part of the DOM, therefore are not targetable by :hover or other user events.

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