CSS border-image-repeat

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The border-image-repeat property is one of the properties introduced in CSS3 for the purposes of enabling images to be used on CSS borders.

The CSS border-image-repeat property is used for defining how the images for the middle part and sides of the border are scaled and tiled.

The border-image-repeat property is used in conjunction with the border-image-source, border-image-slice, border-image-width, and border-image-outset properties in order to determine how the image will appear on the border.

Note that setting an image border will override any border that has been specified using the border-style properties. However, if the image cannot be loaded, or if the border-image-source value is none, the border styles will be used instead.

To save time (and use less code), use the border-image property to set all your background image properties at once.

Syntax

To set both the horizontal and vertical sides:

To set the horizontal and vertical sides separately:

Formal Grammar

The formal grammar for this property is:

See below for more information.

Possible Values

stretch
Specifies that the image will stretch to fit the area (i.e. it will be stretched from one corner to the next).
repeat
Specifies that the image will be repeated (i.e. tiled) to fill the area.
round
The image is repeated (tiled) to fill the area. If it does not fill the area with a whole number of tiles, the image is rescaled so that it does.
space
The image is repeated (tiled) to fill the area. If it does not fill the area with a whole number of tiles, the extra space is distributed around the tiles.

If this property has two values, the first value sets the horizontal sides and the second value sets the vertical sides. If the property has only one value, it sets both the horizontal and vertical sides.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial
Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.
inherit
Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.
unset
This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

Basic Property Information

Initial Value
stretch
Applies To
All elements, except internal table elements when border-collapse is collapse
Inherited?
No
Media
Visual

Example Code

Basic CSS

Working Example within an HTML Document

Try it

CSS Specifications

Browser Support

The following table provided by Caniuse.com shows the level of browser support for this feature.

Vendor Prefixes

For maximum browser compatibility many web developers add browser-specific properties by using extensions such as -webkit- for Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera (newer versions), -ms- for Internet Explorer, -moz- for Firefox, -o- for older versions of Opera etc. As with any CSS property, if a browser doesn't support a proprietary extension, it will simply ignore it.

This practice is not recommended by the W3C, however in many cases, the only way you can test a property is to include the CSS extension that is compatible with your browser.

The major browser manufacturers generally strive to adhere to the W3C specifications, and when they support a non-prefixed property, they typically remove the prefixed version. Also, W3C advises vendors to remove their prefixes for properties that reach Candidate Recommendation status.

Many developers use Autoprefixer, which is a postprocessor for CSS. Autoprefixer automatically adds vendor prefixes to your CSS so that you don't need to. It also removes old, unnecessary prefixes from your CSS.

You can also use Autoprefixer with preprocessors such as Less and Sass.

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