CSS Transparency Settings for All Browsers

by: Chris Coyier Nov 4 2007 71 Transparency is one of those CSS properties that has a weird history and requires lots of different properties and values to ensure cross browser compatibility that goes back as far as you can. To cover all your bases, you need a bunch of CSS statements. Fortunately they don't interfere with each other, so using them all every time you wish to add transparency is no big hassle and worryfree. Here they are, and are currently set to 50% transparency:
.transparent { /* Required for IE 5, 6, 7 */ /* ...or something to trigger hasLayout, like zoom: 1; */ width: 100%; /* Theoretically for IE 8 & 9 (more valid) */ /* ...but not required as filter works too */ /* should come BEFORE filter */ -ms-filter:"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=50)"; /* This works in IE 8 & 9 too */ /* ... but also 5, 6, 7 */ filter: alpha(opacity=50); /* Older than Firefox 0.9 */ -moz-opacity:0.5; /* Safari 1.x (pre WebKit!) */ -khtml-opacity: 0.5; /* Modern! /* Firefox 0.9+, Safari 2?, Chrome any? /* Opera 9+, IE 9+ */ opacity: 0.5; }

Update July 5, 2011. Here's what I'd recommend for usage today, in way easier copy-andpasteable format.
.transparent { zoom: 1; filter: alpha(opacity=50); opacity: 0.5; }

The Thread

1. shane 10/01/2007 Ive tried to use this on links as the following : a img:hover { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; } Unfortunately, it does not work on IE. Do you know how to overcome this problem?

2. Chris Coyier 10/01/2007 I think your problem you are applying the pseudo class :hover to the img element not the anchor element. IE doesnt support pseudo classes on img elements I dont think. You could try setting up a class (e.g. transeffect) for the anchors you want to have this transparency rollover effect on and then changing your CSS to: a.transeffect:hover { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; }

3. anonymous 10/11/2007 No its not that, IE does support the onhover stuff, fortunately. Theres a bug in IE 6 + 7 (perhaps older versions too havent checked) that prevents the filter / opacity to be applied on elements when there is no dimension property assigned in CSS. One way to bypass that bug is to use JavaScript, then it suddenly works. Or just specify a height / width when it doesnt conflict with the stylesheet.

4. Chris Coyier 10/11/2007 Ah yes, that would work. You maybe be able to set the width to like 99.9% to trigger it as well, instead of setting an fixed width when you dont want to.

5. Volkan Grgl 10/24/2007 -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; Hi Chris, these two lines are for which browsers?

6. Chris Coyier 10/24/2007 the -moz-opacity selector is for way old versions of the Mozilla browser (Netscape). This still works and is necessary for those browsers. the -khtml-opacity selector is a little stranger. I originally picked it up when working with JonDesigns SmoothGallery for the first time, where he uses it for a few rollover transparencies. I believe -khtml is specifically for Safari 1.x.

7. Jermayn Parker 11/04/2007 I use: filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src=images/background .png, sizingMethod=scale);

8. Brian Cook 11/07/2007 Id love to see some live examples of these styles in action. I was thinking it might be neat to have a floating div with the random letters of half a secret message, with the other half of the letters in a background image or something so youd have to scroll down to exactly the right point in order to reveal the full message. Im still fairly new to CSS myself, though, so I cant think through how to make it happen.

9. Gagan 11/20/2007 Dont forget DOCTYPE to make it work with IE7 ;) add this to your html to make it work with IE7

10. V1 11/22/2007 the -khtml-opacity selector is a little stranger. I originally picked it up when working with JonDesigns SmoothGallery for the first time, where he uses it for a few rollover transparencies. I believe -khtml is specifically for Safari 1.x. Well its not specifically for Safari, the linux webbrowser Konqueror is also based on the khtml kit.

11. shane 12/07/2007 If use transparency on a block element it makes the text inside transparent as well is there a way i can prevent that from happening? I tried putting the text in another div and setting the opacity to 100 but that didnt do the job, although, logically, i thought it would

12. fioge 12/12/2007 You cant use nested div since it inherits parents opacity level as his 1.0-opacity. You should use the same level foreground div, absolutely positioned over transucent background div, with higher z-index.

13. Robert 01/07/2008 You can use a nested div to get non-transparent text over semi-transparent background if you turn the opacity on the inner div back up, and set the background-color to transparent: test See my goofing around/learning/hack page: http://www.aedsnet.com/ajaxmap.html (click on a map-marker to see the semitransparent box). At least, it worked in IE7 and FireFox

14. Robert 01/07/2008 OK, that link should be http://www.aedsnet.com/maps/ajaxmap.html Also, I didnt realize the html I put into my comment would not display as text, so this is what I have as properties for my nested div: style=opacity:1; background: transparent; The parent div has a green background with opacity of 0.8

But surely it cant be that simple?

15. Chris Coyier 01/08/2008 @Robert: It looks like the text inside your transparent boxes are picking up the transparency as well. You cannot turn back up the transparency of child elements, unfortunately. I did a little tip on how to deal with the recently: Non-Transparent Elements Inside Transparent Elements.

16. Karim 01/19/2008 Well this is well-known indeed but this is NOT valid CSS! Maybe a transparent png as a background along with a js library to handle IE case would be better

17. derry3 02/10/2008 Thx for the info and tips Chris Coyier

18. oleg

02/11/2008 in ie6 :hover works only with a link. this will work for you though: a:hover img { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; }

19. dipak 03/07/2008 I have a checkbox and i want that checkbox to have opacity 0.5. I am using Mozilla 1.4 browser in Solaris 9. But the checkbox is not getting displayed for -moz-opacity:0.5;. It does not consider values in the range 0 or 1. For values less than 1 checkbox is not getting displayed. Please tell me the solution , if in solaris 9 i can use another property. current style class for checkbox: { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; }

20. NekySerbia 03/28/2008 In my CSS i have something like this: { position: absolute; height: 99%;

width: 25%; cursor: pointer; z-index:10; filter:alpha(opacity=20); -moz-opacity:0.2; -khtml-opacity: 0.2; opacity: 0.2; but SmoothGallery still looks awful in Konqueror and Opera. Any way to fix this?

21. zombie 04/14/2008 FOR THE FIRST COMMENT , you should do like this , and it will work in all browsers =>
a:hover img { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; }

SatanicElectro 01/09/2009 Its still not working on IE6.

22. Martin 06/25/2008

Thanks a lot for this tip. I am using it for a menu div over a picture, it looks really cool.

23. kristarella 07/02/2008 Ah, when I have a CSS question I should just search your archives instead of Google. I thought I was knowledgeable in CSS until I read your blog you rock! Cheers for the info!

24. Dan Collins 07/14/2008 Very handy for my navigation, saves a css sprite. Nice design by the way!

25. Peter Yee 08/15/2008 Hi, i tried the codes and it looks great on moz and safari, but in ie, its lagging each time u hover it help!!!

26. Jay Vincent

09/08/2008 Important! An element must have page layout in IE6 is you want to use opacity! You do this by using the star html hack and giving the element a height value of 1px. Because IE6 is stupid, the height will stretch regardless and all other browsers will ignore it. If the element doesnt have page layout, your opacity styles will have no effect at all.

27. mbhayes 09/08/2008 Okay Chris several situational comments appear to have been made you have any further summary / conclusion (to tie-up all of these loose ends)? Or should we just consider your code at the top a good general starting point thatll have to be situationally tweaked? Thanks

28. Stomata 11/06/2008 I just tried you method now and it works great .Thank you very much!!!!

29. Ze Thriller 11/09/2008

Never use opacity directly on an image, set it instead on a div containing the image, this will greatly help to make a clean and fully compatible code. Example:
<div style="filter: alpha(opacity=50);"> <img src="a.png" alt="" width="100" height="100" /> </div>

If you plan on using RGBA PNG images (RGB with transparency layer, not indexed) in an IE6-compatible application, it is needed to use DirectX (DX6 or above required) image filters, but I dont recommend it at all exept for this special case. Example:
<span style="width: 100px; height: 100px; filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='a.png', sizingMethod='scale');"> <img src="transparent.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" style="display: block;" /> </span>

Note the span containing the filter. The inner image is a transparent filler 1px x 1px (smallest size). I noticed it was better than a (non-breakable space) because of zoom text (can break design) and the unability to set a 1px sized text. I found a JavaScript code that can replace all your PNGs in the page, I just changed it a bit to handle IE8. Works fine and quite fast, althrough there are some limitations: - Images inside display: none elements will not be affected (IE bug ?). It may be the same with visibility: hidden and opacity=0, test yourself. - Image are changed after all the page has loaded. The script will start even if loading has been interrupted by the user (ESC key, ) or some images are missing or unreachables. - Once modified, images are no more IMG tags but SPAN: it becomes impossible to set image properties directy via scripting (JavaScript, Visual Basic, ) if image-specific codes are used: Wrong (JavaScript code):
document.getElementById('myimage').src = 'b.png';

Correct (JavaScript code, a bit bigger):

var img = document.getElementById('myimage'); if (img.nodeName.toLowerCase() == 'span') // <span> tag ? { img.style.filter = 'progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src=\'b.png\', sizingMethod=\'scale\')'; // Change "image" dimensions if needed (example, optional): img.style.width = '100px'; // Don't forget the unit !

img.style.height = '100px'; // Same here } else { img.src = 'b.png'; // Standard method (much easier !) }

Try to make a function of this if used many times. PNG auto transform script (here is an XHTML fragement):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <html> <head> <title>IE6 PNG loader test page</title> <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ function correctPNG() { if ((navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer') && (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 7') == -1) && (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 8') == -1)) // IE < v7.x (+ Maxthon v1.x/v2.x , AOL , ...) { for(var i=0; i<document.images.length; i++) { var img = document.images[i] var imgName = img.src.toUpperCase() if (imgName.substring(imgName.length-3, imgName.length) == "PNG") { var imgID = (img.id) ? "id='" + img.id + "' " : "" var imgClass = (img.className) ? "class='" + img.className + "' " : "" var imgTitle = (img.title) ? "title='" + img.title + "' " : "title='" + img.alt + "' " var imgStyle = "display:inline-block;" + img.style.cssText if (img.align == "left") imgStyle = "float:left;" + imgStyle if (img.align == "right") imgStyle = "float:right;" + imgStyle if (img.parentElement.href) imgStyle = "cursor:pointer;" + imgStyle var strNewHTML = "<span " + imgID + imgClass + imgTitle + " style=\"" + "width:" + img.width + "px; height:" + img.height + "px;" + imgStyle + ";" + "filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader" + "(src=\'" + img.src + "\', sizingMethod='scale');\"><\/span>"

img.outerHTML = strNewHTML i = i-1 } } } } // ]]> </script> </head> <body onload="correctPNG();"> <!--- Main content --> <div><img src="a.png" width="100" height="100" alt="" /></div> </body> </html>

I rather use body onload than its JavaScript equivalent (window.onload), seems to work much better, with increased stability.

30. Derren 11/19/2008 IS there a way to apply transparency on a background image? as in example: background: url(image.gif) repeat-x bottom left; opacity: 0.4; filter: alpha(opacity=40); ???

31. sam 11/26/2008 This will not work for ex. in a subnavigation when the png is behind an a tag. the a tag will not work as long you ll not position it relatively what is not always possible. but yeah theoretically it would work.

32. sam 11/26/2008 in IE6 :D. where else

33. sam 11/26/2008 .transparent_class { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; } I have an other question related to the topic. Using "opacity" on an element (lets say div) will apply the opacity on all child elements too. Is there a way around that? cheers

34. Micah 12/21/2008 Hey, this is exactly what I was looking for! This opacity crap is a pain in the ass, but you pulled it all together in a succinct post.

35. sagbee 01/06/2009 Right now, am messed with one my website css strcuture, and was searching on google how to set website on all browsers using css though it wasnt proper solution but i find out the another bug just because of your nice tutorials :) Thanks for your nice tuts!!!

36. Tom 01/07/2009 What a great script! I was thinking that couldnt be realized transparency in all browser, but now this script has changed my mind. Thanx.