Textcss

Textcss is a term used to describe approaches to styling textual content on the web with a focus on typography. It may refer to a CSS extension, a preprocessor, or a library that provides text-centric styling primitives separate from layout rules.

The primary goals of textcss are to improve readability, ensure typographic consistency across devices, and support accessible typography. By organizing typography into a cohesive system, it aims to adapt font size, line height, and spacing to different screen sizes while maintaining visual harmony.

Core concepts include a typographic scale, responsive font sizing, line-height rhythm, letter-spacing control, and text alignment. It often emphasizes baseline grid alignment, controlled hyphenation, and adequate color contrast. Web fonts and variable fonts are commonly used to implement flexible, expressive typography.

Implementation typically takes the form of a CSS utility set, a preprocessor syntax, or a token-based system that compiles to normal CSS. Tokens may define scales, colors, and font families, with CSS custom properties underpinning the final styles. The result remains standard CSS in the browser.

Textcss is not an official standard. It describes an approach rather than a specification, and current practice varies among projects and design systems. It is often used to supplement traditional CSS by providing a structured typography framework that improves consistency and accessibility.

Related topics include CSS, web typography, responsive design, and accessibility.