Hide all text except for the first letter with CSS?

Question

Is it possible to hide all letters after the first letter with CSS?

dt:not(::first-letter) {   display: none; } 

Answer 1

I think you can try this:

.twitter{        display: block;        color: transparent;      }        .twitter:first-letter{        color: #000;      }

 <div id="socialMedia">      <a class="twitter">Twitter</a>  </div>  <div id="socialMedia">      <a class="twitter">Google</a>  </div>

See also this fiddle

Answer 2

You can, but your CSS is wrong. The version below works (at least in Chrome). It makes the dt invisible, and defines an overrule for the first letter to make it visible again.

I tried the same with display too, but that doesn't work, as expected. visibility: hidden hides the content, but keeps the element in place, while display: none removes it from the flow, and makes it impossible for sub-elements (the first letter in this case) to become visible again.

I added a hover too, so you can hover the letter to see the rest of the dt.

dt {    visibility: hidden;  }  dt::first-letter {    visibility: visible;  }    /* Hover the first letter to see the rest */  dt:hover {    visibility: visible;  }

Hover to see the rest:  <dt>Lorum ipsum is a weird text</dt>  <dt>Foo bar</dt>

A side effect will be that the area that is covered by the text is still claimed. Maybe that is not an issue, but if it is you will need some other solution. One possibility is to make the font-size of the dt 0 too. That way, the text is so small that is claims no space. Won't help if it also contains images, of course.

Since it doesn't seem to work, here is the alternative using font-size. Less than ideal, but hopefully it will still solve your problem.

dt {    font-size: 0;  }  dt::first-letter {    font-size: 1rem;  }    /* Hover the first letter to see the rest */  dt:hover {    font-size: 1em;  }

Hover to see the rest:  <dt>Lorum ipsum is a weird text</dt>  <dt>Foo bar</dt>