Inline elements shifting when made bold on hover
Another idea is using letter-spacing
li, a { display: inline-block; }
a {
font-size: 14px;
padding-left: 10px;
padding-right: 10px;
letter-spacing: 0.235px
}
a:hover, a:focus {
font-weight: bold;
letter-spacing: 0
}<ul>
<li><a href="#">item 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">item 2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">item 3</a></li>
</ul>A compromised solution is to fake bold with text-shadow, e.g:
text-shadow: 0 0 0.01px black;
For better comparison I created these examples:
a, li {
color: black;
text-decoration: none;
font: 18px sans-serif;
letter-spacing: 0.03em;
}
li {
display: inline-block;
margin-right: 20px;
color: gray;
font-size: 0.7em;
}
.bold-x1 a.hover:hover,
.bold-x1 a:not(.hover) {
text-shadow: 0 0 .01px black;
}
.bold-x2 a.hover:hover,
.bold-x2 a:not(.hover){
text-shadow: 0 0 .01px black, 0 0 .01px black;
}
.bold-x3 a.hover:hover,
.bold-x3 a:not(.hover){
text-shadow: 0 0 .01px black, 0 0 .01px black, 0 0 .01px black;
}
.bold-native a.hover:hover,
.bold-native a:not(.hover){
font-weight: bold;
}
.bold-native li:nth-child(4),
.bold-native li:nth-child(5){
margin-left: -6px;
letter-spacing: 0.01em;
}<ul class="bold-x1">
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Products</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li>Bold (text-shadow x1)</li>
</ul>
<ul class="bold-x2">
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Products</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li>Extra Bold (text-shadow x2)</li>
</ul>
<ul class="bold-native">
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Products</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li>Bold (native)</li>
</ul>
<ul class="bold-x3">
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a class="hover" href="#">Products</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li>Black (text-shadow x3)</li>
</ul>Passing to text-shadow really low value for blur-radius will make the blurring effect not so apparent.
In general the more your repeat text-shadow the bolder your text will get but in the same time loosing original shape of the letters.
I should warn you that setting the blur-radius to fractions is not going to render the same in all browsers! Safari for example need bigger values to render it the same way Chrome will do.
If you cannot set the width, then that means the width will change as the text gets bold. There is no way to avoid this, except by compromises such as modifying the padding/margins for each state.
Pre-set the width by using an invisible pseudo-element which has the same content and styling as the parent hover style. Use a data attribute, like title, as the source for content.
li {
display: inline-block;
font-size: 0;
}
li a {
display:inline-block;
text-align:center;
font: normal 16px Arial;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
a:hover {
font-weight:bold;
}
/* SOLUTION */
/* The pseudo element has the same content and hover style, so it pre-sets the width of the element and visibility: hidden hides the pseudo element from actual view. */
a::before {
display: block;
content: attr(title);
font-weight: bold;
height: 0;
overflow: hidden;
visibility: hidden;
}<ul>
<li><a href="#" title="height">height</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="icon">icon</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="left">left</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="letter-spacing">letter-spacing</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="line-height">line-height</a></li>
</ul>