Inline SVG in CSS

Question

Is it possible to use an inline SVG definition in CSS?

I mean something like:

.my-class {   background-image: <svg>...</svg>; } 

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible. Try this:

body { background-image:          url("data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' width='10' height='10'><linearGradient id='gradient'><stop offset='10%' stop-color='%23F00'/><stop offset='90%' stop-color='%23fcc'/> </linearGradient><rect fill='url(%23gradient)' x='0' y='0' width='100%' height='100%'/></svg>");       } 

• http://jsfiddle.net/6WAtQ/

(Note that the SVG content needs to be url-escaped for this to work, e.g. # gets replaced with %23.)

This works in IE 9 (which supports SVG). Data-URLs work in older versions of IE too (with limitations), but they don’t natively support SVG.