Make blinking cursor disappear at end of CSS animation - css

Question

I have a blinking cursor animation set up with two lines of text.
I want to have the cursor appear as the text appears, and vanish at the end of the first line – but leave it blinking at the end of the second line.
Someone asked a very similar question, but the solution makes the cursor completely invisible:
Stopping a blinking cursor at end of css animation
Tested this answer code (on several browsers), and it just doesn't work.
Here's what I have:
Code:
.typewriter1 p {
overflow: hidden;
border-right: .15em solid #00aeff;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
color: #fff;
padding-left: 10px;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end infinite;
}
.typewriter2 p {
overflow: hidden;
/* Ensures the content is not revealed until the animation */
border-right: .15em solid #00aeff;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
color: #fff;
padding-left: 10px;
opacity: 0;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end infinite, slidein 1s ease 3.5s forwards;
animation-delay: 3.5s;
}
/* The typing effect */
#keyframes typing {
from {
width: 0
}
to {
width: 100%
}
}
#keyframes slidein {
0% {
opacity: 0;
}
100% {
opacity: 1;
}
}
/* The typewriter cursor effect */
#keyframes blink-caret {
from,
to {
border-color: #00aeff
}
50% {
border-color: transparent;
}
}
<div class="typewriter1">
<p>A well defined plan will identify problems,</p>
</div>
<div class="typewriter2">
<p> address challenges, and help restore confidence.</p>
</div>

Answer 1

Only Example 2 is fully explained at the moment. Example 3 is exactly the same HTML and CSS as the question with minor changes.
Example 1 — Redesign for background images and gradients
HTML
First, we can clean up the HTML. This is a single paragraph, so let's wrap it in one paragraph element:
<p class="typewriter">
A well defined plan will identify problems,
address challenges, and help restore confidence.
</p>
Second, we need to reveal each line individually, so we wrap each line in a nested span element and manually break the line with a line break:
<p class="typewriter">
<span class="slide">
<span class="inner-slide">A well defined plan will identify problems,
</span>
</span><br>
<span class="slide">
<span class="inner-slide">address challenges, and help restore confidence. </span>
</span>
</p>
Full Example 1
Current Limitation: We have to set a fixed pixel width for left.
.typewriter {
position: relative;
height: 500px;
margin: 0 auto;
width: 310px;
overflow: hidden;
}
.typewriter .slide,
.inner-slide {
display: inline-block;
overflow: hidden;
height: 1.1em;
}
.typewriter .slide {
position: relative;
animation: typing 2s steps(30, end) forwards, blink-caret .75s step-end infinite;
left: -310px;
border-right: .15em solid transparent;
}
.typewriter .slide:nth-of-type(1) {
animation: typing 2s steps(30, end) forwards, blink-caret .75s step-end 2.6;
}
.inner-slide {
position: relative;
animation: typing2 2s steps(30, end) forwards;
white-space: nowrap;
left: 310px;
}
.typewriter .slide:nth-of-type(2),
.typewriter .slide:nth-of-type(2) .inner-slide {
animation-delay: 2s;
}
#keyframes typing {
from {
left: -310px;
}
to {
left: 0;
}
}
#keyframes typing2 {
from {
left: 310px;
}
to {
left: 0;
}
}
/*The typewriter cursor effect */
#keyframes blink-caret {
0,
100% {
border-color: transparent
}
50% {
border-color: #00aeff
}
}
body {
background: linear-gradient(to bottom right, #CCC 0, #F00 100%) no-repeat;
}
<p class="typewriter">
<span class="slide">
<span class="inner-slide">A well defined plan will identify problems,
</span>
</span><br>
<span class="slide">
<span class="inner-slide">address challenges, and help restore confidence.</span>
</span>
</p>
Example 2 — Original. Suitable for solid colour backgrounds
The HTML
First, we can clean up the HTML. This is a single paragraph, so let's wrap it in one paragraph element:
<p class="typewriter">
A well defined plan will identify problems,
address challenges, and help restore confidence.
</p>
Second, we need to reveal each line individually, so we wrap each line in a span element and manually break the line with a line break:
<p class="typewriter">
<span>A well defined plan will identify problems,</span><br>
<span> address challenges, and help restore confidence.</span>
</p>
The CSS
Now we need an element that will cover our text and act as an animated cursor. We can use a pseudo-element that will start at 100% width and have a left border, like so:
.typewriter > span::before {
content: '';
border-left: .15em solid #00aeff;
position: absolute;
background: white;
height: 1.1em;
right: -5px;
width: 100%;
}
The height is just enough to cover all the text including below the baseline.
The right negative value will pull it outside its parent so the cursor doesn't show on the first line thanks to overflow-hidden on the parent.
It starts at 100% width which is animated to 0.
It is positioned absolute to the span which has a relative position.
In order to keep the cursor on the last line, we need to give it a 0 right value:
.typewriter > span:last-of-type::before {
right: 0;
}
Now it will no longer be pulled outside the parent.
The second line needs to be delayed by the same amount of time as the animation run time:
.typewriter > span:nth-of-type(2)::before {
animation-delay: 2s;
}
Because we want the paragraph widths to be determined by the width of the text and the span to accept widths, we need to make them inline-block:
.typewriter,
.typewriter > span {
display: inline-block;
}
Lastly, we reverse the typing animation to go from 100% to 0:
#keyframes typing {
from {
width: 100%
}
to {
width: 0
}
}
Full Example 2
.typewriter,
.typewriter > span {
display: inline-block;
}
.typewriter > span {
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
padding-right: 4px;
}
.typewriter > span::before {
content: '';
position: absolute;
border-left: .15em solid #00aeff;
background: white;
height: 1.1em;
right: -5px;
width: 100%;
animation: blink-caret .75s step-end infinite, typing 2s steps(30, end) forwards;
}
.typewriter > span:nth-of-type(2)::before {
animation-delay: 2s;
}
.typewriter > span:last-of-type::before {
right: 0;
}
/* The typing effect*/
#keyframes typing {
from {
width: 100%
}
to {
width: 0
}
}
/*The typewriter cursor effect */
#keyframes blink-caret {
from,
to {
border-color: #00aeff
}
50% {
border-color: transparent
}
}
<p class="typewriter">
<span>A well defined plan will identify problems,</span><br>
<span> address challenges, and help restore confidence.</span>
</p>
Example 3 — Using exactly the example from the question
Change the iteration count as appropriate for the first line caret. In this example the value is 4.1. This animation will iterate 4.1 times and then stop:
animation: blink-caret .75s step-end 4.1
The border that creates the caret is changed to transparent:
border-right: .15em solid transparent
and the animation is flipped:
#keyframes blink-caret {
0,
100% {
border-color: transparent
}
50% {
border-color: #00aeff
}
}
Now the stopped state is transparent and the first line will disappear on the first line.
Full Example 3
body {
width: 330px;
}
.typewriter1 p {
overflow: hidden;
border-right: .15em solid transparent;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
padding-left: 10px;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end 4.1;
}
.typewriter2 p {
overflow: hidden;
/* Ensures the content is not revealed until the animation */
border-right: .15em solid transparent;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
padding-left: 10px;
opacity: 0;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end infinite, slidein 1s ease 3.5s forwards;
animation-delay: 3.5s;
}
/* The typing effect */
#keyframes typing {
from {
width: 0
}
to {
width: 100%
}
}
#keyframes slidein {
0% {
opacity: 0;
}
100% {
opacity: 1;
}
}
/* The typewriter cursor effect */
#keyframes blink-caret {
0,
100% {
border-color: transparent
}
50% {
border-color: #00aeff
}
}
<div class="typewriter1">
<p>A well defined plan will identify problems,</p>
</div>
<div class="typewriter2">
<p> address challenges, and help restore confidence.</p>
</div>

Answer 2

I just changed infinite from .typewriter1 p { to 5.
.typewriter1 p {
overflow: hidden;
border-right: .15em solid #00aeff;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
color: #fff;
padding-left: 10px;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end 5;
}
.typewriter2 p {
overflow: hidden;
/* Ensures the content is not revealed until the animation */
border-right: .15em solid #00aeff;
white-space: nowrap;
margin: 0 auto;
letter-spacing: 0;
color: #fff;
padding-left: 10px;
opacity: 0;
animation: typing 3.5s steps(40, end), blink-caret .75s step-end infinite, slidein 1s ease 3.5s forwards;
animation-delay: 3.5s;
}
/* The typing effect */
#keyframes typing {
from {
width: 0
}
to {
width: 100%
}
}
#keyframes slidein {
0% {
opacity: 0;
}
100% {
opacity: 1;
}
}
/* The typewriter cursor effect */
#keyframes blink-caret {
from,
to {
border-color: #00aeff
}
50% {
border-color: transparent;
}
}
<div class="typewriter1">
<p>A well defined plan will identify problems,</p>
</div>
<div class="typewriter2">
<p> address challenges, and help restore confidence.</p>
</div>

Answer 3

If you're not necessarily glued to writing your own animations for this, TypeIt's (https://typeitjs.com) API makes it possible w/ a lot less custom code:
https://codepen.io/alexmacarthur/pen/MWWEPxa
const secondInstance = new TypeIt('.typewriter2 p');
const firstInstance = new TypeIt('.typewriter1 p', {
afterComplete: function (instance) {
document.querySelector('.typewriter1 p .ti-cursor').remove();
secondInstance.go();
}
}).go();
The only downside to this approach is that you have less control over the animation itself (you'd need to override the CSS animation provided by the library).