CSS counter-increment Property

Example

Create a counter ("my-sec-counter") and increase it by one for each occurrence of the <h2> selector:

body {
  /* Set "my-sec-counter" to 0 */
  counter-reset: my-sec-counter;
}

h2::before {
  /* Increment "my-sec-counter" by 1 */
  counter-increment: my-sec-counter;
  content: "Section " counter(my-sec-counter) ". ";
} 

Definition and Usage

The counter-increment property increases or decreases the value of one or more CSS counters.

The counter-increment property is usually used together with the counter-reset (creates counter and assigns some value to it) property and the content property.

Default value:	none
Inherited:	no
Animatable:	no.
Version:	CSS2
JavaScript syntax:	object.style.counterIncrement = "subsection";

• Inherited : "Inherited = no" means that it cannot takes (inherit) it's value from it's parent element.
• object - object in javascript means the element on which counter-increment is applied.
• Animatable - "Animatable = no" means that it cannot be animated with CSS @keyframes.

Browser Support

The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the property.

Property
counter-increment	4.0	8.0	2.0	3.1	9.6

CSS Syntax

counter-increment: none|id|initial|inherit;

Property Values

Value	Description
none	Default value. No counters will be incremented
id number	The id defines which counter to increment. The number sets how much the counter will increment on each occurrence of the selector. The default increment is 1. Negative values are allowed. If id refers to a counter that has not been initialized by counter-reset, the default initial value is 0
initial	Sets this property to its default value.
inherit	Inherits this property from its parent element.

More Examples

Example

Create a counter ("my-sec-counter") and decrease it by one for each occurrence of the <h2> selector:

body {
  /* Set "my-sec-counter" to 0 */
  counter-reset: my-sec-counter;
}

h2::before {
  /* Decrement "my-sec-counter" by 1 */
  counter-increment: my-sec-counter -1;
  content: "Section " counter(my-sec-counter) ". ";
} 

 

Example

Numbering sections and sub-sections with "Section 1:", "1.1", "1.2", etc.:

body {
   /* Set "section" to 0 */
  counter-reset: section;
}

h1 {
   /* Set "subsection" to 0 */
  counter-reset: subsection;
}

h1::before {
  /* Increment "section" by 1 */
  counter-increment: section;
  content: "Section " counter(section) ": ";
}

h2::before {
  /* Increment "subsection" by 1 */
  counter-increment: subsection;
  content: counter(section) "." counter(subsection) " ";
} 

Example

Create a counter and increase it by one (using Roman numerals) for each occurrence of the <h2> selector:

body {
  /* Set "my-sec-counter" to 0 */
  counter-reset: my-sec-counter;
}

h2::before {
  /* Increment "my-sec-counter" by 1 */
  counter-increment: my-sec-counter;
  content: counter(my-sec-counter, upper-roman) ". ";
}