How do I format an unordered list?

CSS Lists

In this tutorial you will learn how to format HTML lists using CSS.

Table of Contents Show

Styling lists
<ul>: The Unordered List element
How to Make Lists in HTML
HTML Unordered List | HTML Bulleted List
How To Format Bullet Lists (<ul>) Using CSS
Method 1: Universal Style

HTML Lists

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HTML lists allow web developers to group a set of related items in lists.

Example

An unordered HTML list:

Item
Item
Item
Item

An ordered HTML list:

First item
Second item
Third item
Fourth item

Try it Yourself »

Styling lists

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Overview: Styling text
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Lists behave like any other text for the most part, but there are some CSS properties specific to lists that you need to know about, as well as some best practices to consider. This article explains all.

Prerequisites:	Basic computer literacy, HTML basics (study Introduction to HTML), CSS basics (study Introduction to CSS), CSS text and font fundamentals.
Objective:	To become familiar with the best practices and properties related to styling lists.

<ul>: The Unordered List element

The <ul> HTML element represents an unordered list of items, typically rendered as a bulleted list.

Content categories	Flow content, and if the <ul> element's children include at least one <li> element, palpable content.
Permitted content	Zero or more <li>, <script> and <template> elements.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts flow content.
Implicit ARIA role	list
Permitted ARIA roles	directory, group, listbox, menu, menubar, none, presentation, radiogroup, tablist, toolbar, tree
DOM Interface	HTMLUListElement

How to Make Lists in HTML

In HTML, we can list items either in an ordered or unordered fashion.

An ordered list uses numbers or some sort of notation that indicates a series of items.

For example, an ordered list can start with number 1, and continue through 2, 3, 4, and so on. Your ordered list can also start with the letter A and go through B, C, D, and so on.

Here is an example of an ordered list with students' names and marks.

Ordered list of students

On the other hand, we have unordered lists, like a TODO list for example. Here I am so passionate about coding that I skipped my breakfast 🤓.

Unordered TODO list

There is one more type of list called a description list that we will learn as well below.

Now let's get into a bit more detail and see how to create each type of list in HTML.

HTML Unordered List | HTML Bulleted List

HTML Unordered List or Bulleted List displays elements in bulleted format . We can use unordered list where we do not need to display items in any particular order. The HTML ul tag is used for the unordered list. There can be 4 types of bulleted list:

disc
circle
square
none

To represent different ordered lists, there are 4 types of attributes in <ul> tag.

Type	Description
Type "disc"	This is the default style. In this style, the list items are marked with bullets.
Type "circle"	In this style, the list items are marked with circles.
Type "square"	In this style, the list items are marked with squares.
Type "none"	In this style, the list items are not marked .

How To Format Bullet Lists (<ul>) Using CSS

Bullet lists in HTML come in two varieties: Ordered Lists (in which each line begins with a number or letter) and Unordered Lists (in which each line begins with the same bullet shape or image).

Ordered list		Unordered List		Unordered List with CSS Style
Line 1 Line 2 Line 3		Line 1 Line 2 Line 3		Line 1 Line 2 Line 3

On this page we will discuss how to format unordered lists so they have a bit more style. We'll also show you how to use an image for bullet lists.

CSS Styles

There are several ways to format the style of your lists but they all use the same basic set of instructions. These are CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) instructions and they look like this:

font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 2em;

These are just a small sample of the styles which are available. The ones above are common CSS styles and can be used anywhere there is text. There are also styles specific to lists, such as:

list-style-position: outside;
list-style-image: url(arrow.gif);
list-style-type: square;

When formatting a list, you can choose as many of these styles as you like. If you only need to use an image for the bullets, then that's the only style you choose. For this page we will use the following requirements to illustrate the methods:

Set the font face to Verdana
Set the font size to 12 pixels
Set the background colour to grey
Create a 6 pixel padding around the entire list

More formatting options will follow later.

Method 1: Universal Style

The simplest way to format your lists is to define a style which applies to all lists in the page. In the head of your web page, add the following code:

Syntax: list-style-image: <value>
Possible Values: <url> | none

Default Value: one
Applies to: Elements with display value list-item
Inherited: Yes
Replaces the marker specified in the list-style-type property.

Syntax: list-style-position: <value>
Possible Values: inside | outside
Default Value: outside
Applies to: Elements with display value list-item
Inherited: Yes
Takes the value inside or outside, with outside being the default. This property determines where the marker is placed in regard to the list item. If the value inside is used, the lines will wrap under the marker instead of being indented.

Example

Line 1
Second Line
Line 2
Line 3

The example on the right is the result of the style below. Note that both a list-style-type and list-style-type are defined - the arrow image is used unless it cannot be found or the user has image display disabled, in which case the list uses square bullets.