textbackground

Textbackground is a concept describing the visual background behind rendered text. It encompasses any coloring, shading, or pattern applied to the area behind glyphs, and is distinct from the text’s foreground color. In typography and UI design, textbackground helps readability, emphasis, and visual hierarchy.

In web development, textbackground is typically implemented by applying a background color or image to the element that contains the text. Inline elements such as spans can carry a background color, enabling highlighting of specific words or phrases. More advanced techniques include using background-clip: text with a transparent fill to reveal a gradient or image through the glyphs, though browser support varies. In typography tools and word processors, textbackground is controlled via highlighting or shading options.

In programming and markup languages, textbackground can be controlled via escape sequences or styling tokens. For terminal emulators, ANSI color codes set the background color behind characters. In LaTeX, commands like \colorbox or packages such as soul provide textbackground.

Accessibility considerations include ensuring sufficient contrast between textbackground and surrounding content, particularly for low-vision users, and avoiding excessive or opaque backgrounds that obscure glyph shapes.

Textbackground is often not a standalone CSS property, but a term used in design systems to refer to a text’s behind-the-text styling. It may be represented as a token or variable, such as textBackground in a design token set.

See also: background-color, highlight, syntax highlighting, background-clip.