Superscript underline in IE

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/420770

Question

I'm going to be brief because I'm short on time, so I apologize if this isn't as detailed as I'd like it to be.

I have some code:

print("<a href='#'>Some text<sup>&reg;</sup> some more text</a>");

In FF, this works like I would like, the link as a whole is underlined. However in IE, the link is underlined except under the ® where it looks like a symbol above a hyphen and is rather ridiculous looking.

I've tried several suggestions I found on Google, but none of them are very helpful in achieving the desired effect. Adding a border to the bottom is not an option unfortunately. So far the best solution is to break the underline completely at the sup tag with CSS which still leaves it working fine in FF while still looking less silly in IE.

If anyone could help with this it would be most appreciated, I'd rather not go through the site removing <sup> tags as I've been told I will have to do should I not solve this dilemma.

UPDATE: Went with the sup {"text-decoration:none" } solution, it'll do for now. There are reg marks everywhere, so the whole site would've had to have been updated, which was more trouble than it was worth we all decided. Thanks to those who replied.

Was it helpful?

Solution

The <sup> tag isn't great for things like trademark and reg symbols.

I prefer doing it with css:

<span style='font-size:75%;vertical-align:super;text-decoration:none'>&reg</span>

If you can set up a .reg class:

.reg {
    font-size:75%;
    vertical-align:super;
    text-decoration:none
}

For:

<span class='reg'>&reg;</span>

OTHER TIPS

Sometimes you're not allowed to add class to a link or wrap it with any element. The situation is not so rare when you need to work with third-party code. BTW, same problem with element too.

In this case you can use something like this:

  1. Leave underlining as is for Firefox (all look OK)

  2. Use such styling for Chrome (it has same problems like IE, even harder):

    [style]
a sup {
    text-decoration: none;
    display: inline-block; // without this previous property will not work
    border-bottom: 1px solid;
    line-height: 1.5em;    // this and following properties are used to shift
    margin-top: -1em;      // an element to make border aligned with underline
                       // can be used relative position or something else.
}
a sub {
    text-decoration: none;
    display: inline-block;
    vertical-align: middle;
    border-bottom: 1px solid;
    line-height: 0.7em;
}
[/style]
[a href="what-aczone-can-do-for-you.aspx"]Text-Jj_Jj[sub]Jj[/sub][sup]Jj[/sup]moreText[/a]
    • sorry for []s in tags, I still can't undestand how this f*** system makes code samples - when I try to format as it wants, I get a mess.

Well it is not an elegant solution, basically use a border instead of an underline. You would have to code the color of it based on "Active, Visted, Etc"

<style type="text/css">
   a.u {
       text-decoration: none; 
       border-bottom: 1px solid black;
       display: inline;
   }
</style>

<a href="#123" class="u">CHEESE<sup>&reg;</sup></a>

Eric

I made it work like this 

print(< a href='#' class="underline">Some text< sup >&reg;< /sup > some more text< /a >)  
.underline {text-decoration:none; border-bottom:1px solid #FFF;}

Eric's solution is the closest. He doesn't need to have display: inline since <a> elements are inline elements. only thing that he is missing is the line-height so that you can see the border bottom on IE 6, and IE 7. Otherwise, you won't see the line.

<style type="text/css">
   a.u {
       text-decoration: none; 
       border-bottom: 1px solid black;
       line-height: 1.5em;
   }
</style>

<a href="#123" class="u">CHEESE<sup>&reg;</sup></a>

Well I agree it looks awful, but it seems to be just the way IE combines underline and superscript. I suggest you go with your CSS plan to remove the underline for a sup if you can't cheat with a border. There's an IE only property called text-underline-position but it doesn't have any value which helps here either I'm afraid.

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know already that would be:

a sup{text-decoration:none;}

As Diodeus says, and a little research tends to agree, I understand that the reg mark wouldn't go in a sup element anyway.

So, assuming that we're only addressing the sup/underline issue and forgetting that we're referring to reg mark, the only solutions I know of to make them 'look' the same are to make vertical-align: baseline or kill the text-decoration on the sup.

The border-bottom solution will place the line under any "p" "q" or "y" instead of through the letters' bottom legs. That is 2px lower than an underline would be.

An alternative is to make the <a> position:relative
make the <sup> position:absolute; top:-3px; text-decoration:none;

add an extra &nbsp; after </sup>

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