CSS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Problem

You want to stylize a pull quote with images on either side, such as the curly braces in Figure 2-24.

Solution

Use the blockquote element to mark up the pull quote content:

<blockquote> <p>Ma quande lingues coalesce, li grammatica del resultant lingue es plu simplic e regulari quam ti.</p> </blockquote>

Then set the style for the pull quote, placing one image in the background of the blockquote element and another in the background of the p:

blockquote { background-image: url(bracket_left.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; float: left; width: 175px; margin: 0 0.7em 0 0; padding: 10px 0 0 27px; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 1.2em; font-style: italic; color: black; } blockquote p { margin: 0; padding: 0 22px 10px 0; width:150px; text-align: justify; line-height: 1.3em; background-image: url(bracket_right.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: bottom right; }

Discussion

For this solution, the bracket images for the pull quote come in a pair, with one at the upper-left corner and the other at the bottom-right corner. Through CSS, you can assign only one background image per block-level element.

The workaround is to give these images the proper placement; put one image in the background of the blockquote element and the other in the p element that is a child of the blockquote element:

blockquote { background-image: url(bracket_left.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; float: left; width: 175px; } blockquote p { background-image: url(bracket_right.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: bottom right; }

Then adjust the padding, margin, and width of the blockquote and p elements so that you have an unobstructed view of the images:

blockquote { background-image: url(bracket_left.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; float: left; width: 175px; margin: 0 0.7em 0 0; padding: 10px 0 0 27px; } blockquote p { margin: 0; padding: 0 22px 10px 0; width: 150px; background-image: url(bracket_right.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: bottom right; }

A benefit of this solution is that if the text is resized (see Figure 2-25), the images (brackets) reposition themselves.

See Also

Recipe 6.15 for another example of the rubber-band technique. If you stretch a rubber band on both ends, the rubber band stays intact, just like the presentation of the images stay intact even if you resize the text.