CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlcss
Kladskull
Kladskull

Reputation: 10732

How do I add a tool tip to a span element?

In the following code, I want a tool-tip to come up when the user hovers the span, how do I do that? I don't want to use any links.

<span> text </span>

Upvotes: 447

Views: 472307

Answers (5)

Rony
Rony

Reputation: 9511

The title attribute will be used as the text for tooltip by the browser. If you want to apply style to it, consider using some libraries, e.g. jQuery UI.

Upvotes: 6

RichieHindle
RichieHindle

Reputation: 281425

Here's the simple, built-in way:

<span title="My tip">text</span>

That gives you plain text tooltips. If you want rich tooltips, with formatted HTML in them, you'll need to use a library to do that. Fortunately there are loads of those.

Upvotes: 827

Abk
Abk

Reputation: 2233

For the basic tooltip, you want:

<span title="This is my tooltip"> Hover on me to see tooltip! </span>

Upvotes: 12

Josh Crozier
Josh Crozier

Reputation: 240888

Custom Tooltips with pure CSS - no JavaScript needed:

Example here (with code) / Full screen example

As an alternative to the default title attribute tooltips, you can make your own custom CSS tooltips using :before/:after pseudo elements and HTML5 data-* attributes.

Using the provided CSS, you can add a tooltip to an element using the data-tooltip attribute.

You can also control the position of the custom tooltip using the data-tooltip-position attribute (accepted values: top/right/bottom/left).

For instance, the following will add a tooltop positioned at the bottom of the span element.

<span data-tooltip="Custom tooltip text." data-tooltip-position="bottom">Custom bottom tooltip.</span>

enter image description here

How does this work?

You can display the custom tooltips with pseudo elements by retrieving the custom attribute values using the attr() function.

[data-tooltip]:before {
    content: attr(data-tooltip);
}

In terms of positioning the tooltip, just use the attribute selector and change the placement based on the attribute's value.

Example here (with code) / Full screen example

Full CSS used in the example - customize this to your needs.

[data-tooltip] {
    display: inline-block;
    position: relative;
    cursor: help;
    padding: 4px;
}
/* Tooltip styling */
[data-tooltip]:before {
    content: attr(data-tooltip);
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
    background: #000;
    color: #fff;
    padding: 4px 8px;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 1.4;
    min-width: 100px;
    text-align: center;
    border-radius: 4px;
}
/* Dynamic horizontal centering */
[data-tooltip-position="top"]:before,
[data-tooltip-position="bottom"]:before {
    left: 50%;
    -ms-transform: translateX(-50%);
    -moz-transform: translateX(-50%);
    -webkit-transform: translateX(-50%);
    transform: translateX(-50%);
}
/* Dynamic vertical centering */
[data-tooltip-position="right"]:before,
[data-tooltip-position="left"]:before {
    top: 50%;
    -ms-transform: translateY(-50%);
    -moz-transform: translateY(-50%);
    -webkit-transform: translateY(-50%);
    transform: translateY(-50%);
}
[data-tooltip-position="top"]:before {
    bottom: 100%;
    margin-bottom: 6px;
}
[data-tooltip-position="right"]:before {
    left: 100%;
    margin-left: 6px;
}
[data-tooltip-position="bottom"]:before {
    top: 100%;
    margin-top: 6px;
}
[data-tooltip-position="left"]:before {
    right: 100%;
    margin-right: 6px;
}

/* Tooltip arrow styling/placement */
[data-tooltip]:after {
    content: '';
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
    width: 0;
    height: 0;
    border-color: transparent;
    border-style: solid;
}
/* Dynamic horizontal centering for the tooltip */
[data-tooltip-position="top"]:after,
[data-tooltip-position="bottom"]:after {
    left: 50%;
    margin-left: -6px;
}
/* Dynamic vertical centering for the tooltip */
[data-tooltip-position="right"]:after,
[data-tooltip-position="left"]:after {
    top: 50%;
    margin-top: -6px;
}
[data-tooltip-position="top"]:after {
    bottom: 100%;
    border-width: 6px 6px 0;
    border-top-color: #000;
}
[data-tooltip-position="right"]:after {
    left: 100%;
    border-width: 6px 6px 6px 0;
    border-right-color: #000;
}
[data-tooltip-position="bottom"]:after {
    top: 100%;
    border-width: 0 6px 6px;
    border-bottom-color: #000;
}
[data-tooltip-position="left"]:after {
    right: 100%;
    border-width: 6px 0 6px 6px;
    border-left-color: #000;
}
/* Show the tooltip when hovering */
[data-tooltip]:hover:before,
[data-tooltip]:hover:after {
    display: block;
    z-index: 50;
}

Upvotes: 132

Brian Arnold Sinclair
Brian Arnold Sinclair

Reputation: 3833

In most browsers, the title attribute will render as a tooltip, and is generally flexible as to what sorts of elements it'll work with.

<span title="This will show as a tooltip">Mouse over for a tooltip!</span>
<a href="http://www.stackoverflow.com" title="Link to stackoverflow.com">stackoverflow.com</a>
<img src="something.png" alt="Something" title="Something">

All of those will render tooltips in most every browser.

Upvotes: 22

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