<textPath>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

To render text along the shape of a <path>, enclose the text in a <textPath> element that has an href attribute with a reference to the <path> element.

Example

html,
body,
svg {
  height: 100%;
}

html

<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- to hide the path, it is usually wrapped in a <defs> element -->
  <!-- <defs> -->
  <path
    id="MyPath"
    fill="none"
    stroke="red"
    d="M10,90 Q90,90 90,45 Q90,10 50,10 Q10,10 10,40 Q10,70 45,70 Q70,70 75,50" />
  <!-- </defs> -->

  <text>
    <textPath href="#MyPath">Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.</textPath>
  </text>
</svg>

Attributes

href: The URL to the path or basic shape on which to render the text. If the path attribute is set, href has no effect. Value type: <URL> ; Default value: none; Animatable: yes
lengthAdjust: Where length adjustment should be applied to the text: the space between glyphs, or both the space and the glyphs themselves. Value type: spacing|spacingAndGlyphs; Default value: spacing; Animatable: yes
method: Which method to render individual glyphs along the path. Value type: align|stretch ; Default value: align; Animatable: yes
path Experimental: The path on which the text should be rendered. Value type: <path_data> ; Default value: none; Animatable: yes
side Experimental: Which side of the path the text should be rendered. Value type: left|right ; Default value: left; Animatable: yes
spacing: How space between glyphs should be handled. Value type: auto|exact ; Default value: exact; Animatable: yes
startOffset: How far the beginning of the text should be offset from the beginning of the path. Value type: <length>|<percentage>|<number> ; Default value: 0; Animatable: yes
textLength: The width of the space into which the text will render. Value type: <length>|<percentage>|<number> ; Default value: auto; Animatable: yes

Usage context

Categories	Text content element, Text content child element
Permitted content	Character data and any number of the following elements, in any order: Descriptive elements `<a>`, `<animate>`, `<set>`, `<tref>`, `<tspan>`

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2 # TextPathElement

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser