How to Create Circled Number Lists with HTML and CSS (No Images)

You can put a circle around the numbers of an ordered list (<ol>) as shown below without using image formats like JPG or PNG, which reduces development and loading time for your site.

Demo: How It Looks

CSS

Copy the code below and paste it into your CSS file.

ol {
    counter-reset: item;
    margin: 0;
    padding-left: 0;
}
ol > li {
    counter-increment: item;
    list-style: none inside;
    margin: 40px 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    font-size: 16px !important;
    line-height: 1.3;
}
ol > li:before {
    content: counter(item);
    margin-right: 20px;
    padding: 8px;
    display: block;
    box-sizing: content-box;
    -webkit-border-radius: 50%;
    -moz-border-radius: 50%;
    border-radius: 50%;
    width: 65px;
    height: 65px;
    background: #fe862c;
    color: #fff;
    text-align: center;
    font: 56px 'Lato', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
    font-weight: 100;
    line-height: 65px;
    float: left;
}

HTML

Copy the code below and paste it into your HTML document.

<ol>
    <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, felis dui nam, vivamus turpis bibendum et massa.</li>
    <li>At augue, erat dui odio. Duis lectus, laoreet et, dolor nascetur tellus tellus sit etiam, massa leo dolor. Magna mi vitae et, lectus pellentesque, nec magna et ante, vehicula torquent venenatis tempor eget, elementum condimentum.</li>
    <li>Integer porttitor donec, justo in, in pede, et leo ornare viverra erat ac. Dui diam, a sed purus, porta penatibus. Magna in, congue quam pulvinar cras malesuada condimentum nunc, vestibulum ut dolor tortor fusce nibh sollicitudin.</li>
    <li>Vitae in, a pulvinar velit laoreet, tristique nascetur sapien. Placerat nunc a integer tincidunt sem, vivamus turpis, erat pulvinar interdum rhoncus nonummy vitae, etiam eleifend arcu non cras a commodo.</li>
    <li>Quis mus donec, volutpat placerat nam et eros quam enim, id tincidunt aliquam libero odio, suspendisse a quam tristique ligula.</li>
</ol>

You can copy both the CSS and HTML to your file and tweak them as you like. Enjoy coding!

Note: these selectors apply to every ordered list on the page. To limit them to one list, give it a class (for example ol.circled) and add it to each selector. The numbers use the Lato font and fall back to Helvetica or Arial if Lato isn’t loaded.