draw diagonal lines in div background with CSS

Question

I have div for preview box

HTML:

<div class="preview-content">PREVIEW</div>

CSS:

.preview-content {
    background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAAECAYAAACp8Z5+AAAAGklEQVQIW2NkYGD4D8SMQAwGcAY2AbBKDBUAVuYCBQPd34sAAAAASUVORK5CYII=) repeat;
    width: 100%;
    min-height: 300px;
    max-height: 300px;
    line-height: 300px;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
     font-size: 2em;
}

Q: how to add diagonal lines to div background like in picture

note: with CSS only if possible

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

You can use SVG to draw the lines.

.diag {
    background: url("data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' version='1.1' preserveAspectRatio='none' viewBox='0 0 100 100'><path d='M1 0 L0 1 L99 100 L100 99' fill='black' /><path d='M0 99 L99 0 L100 1 L1 100' fill='black' /></svg>");
    background-repeat:no-repeat;
    background-position:center center;
    background-size: 100% 100%, auto;
}

<div class="diag" style="width: 300px; height: 100px;"></div>

Have a play here: http://jsfiddle.net/tyw7vkvm

Answer 2

Almost perfect solution, that automatically scales to dimensions of an element would be usage of CSS3 linear-gradient connected with calc() as shown below. Main drawback is of course compatibility. Code below works in Firefox 25 and Explorer 10 and 11, but in Chrome (I've tested v30 and v32 dev) there are some subtle problems with lines disappearing if they are too narrow. Moreover disappearing depends on the box dimensions – style below works for div { width: 100px; height: 100px}, but fails for div { width: 200px; height: 200px} for which in my tests 0.8px in calculations needs to be replaced with at least 1.1048507095px for diagonals to be shown and even then line rendering quality is quite poor. Let's hope this Chrome bug will be solved soon.

.crossed {
    background: 
       linear-gradient(to top left,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) 0%,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) calc(50% - 0.8px),
           rgba(0,0,0,1) 50%,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) calc(50% + 0.8px),
           rgba(0,0,0,0) 100%),
       linear-gradient(to top right,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) 0%,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) calc(50% - 0.8px),
           rgba(0,0,0,1) 50%,
           rgba(0,0,0,0) calc(50% + 0.8px),
           rgba(0,0,0,0) 100%);
}

Answer 3

Please check the following.

<canvas id="myCanvas" width="200" height="100"></canvas>
<div id="mydiv"></div>

JS:

var c = document.getElementById("myCanvas");
var ctx = c.getContext("2d");
ctx.strokeStyle="red";
ctx.moveTo(0,100);
ctx.lineTo(200,0);
ctx.stroke();
ctx.moveTo(0,0);
ctx.lineTo(200,100);
ctx.stroke();

CSS:

html, body { 
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

#myCanvas {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  width: 200px;
  height: 100px;
}

#mydiv {
  position: absolute;
  left: 0px;
  right: 0;
  height: 102px;
  width: 202px;
  background: rgba(255,255,255,0);
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
}

jsfiddle

Answer 4

You can do it something like this:

<style>
    .background {
        background-color: #BCBCBC;
        width: 100px;
        height: 50px;
        padding: 0; 
        margin: 0
    }
    .line1 {
        width: 112px;
        height: 47px;
        border-bottom: 1px solid red;
        -webkit-transform:
            translateY(-20px)
            translateX(5px)
            rotate(27deg); 
        position: absolute;
        /* top: -20px; */
    }
    .line2 {
        width: 112px;
        height: 47px;
        border-bottom: 1px solid green;
        -webkit-transform:
            translateY(20px)
            translateX(5px)
            rotate(-26deg);
        position: absolute;
        top: -33px;
        left: -13px;
    }
</style>
<div class="background">
    <div class="line1"></div>
    <div class="line2"></div>
</div>

Here is a jsfiddle.

Improved version of answer for your purpose.

Answer 5

.borders {
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: black;
    border-width: 40px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: red blue green yellow;
}

<div class='borders'></div>

Answer 6

All other answers to this 3-year old question require CSS3 (or SVG). However, it can also be done with nothing but lame old CSS2:

.crossed {
    position: relative;
    width: 300px;
    height: 300px;
}

.crossed:before {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    top: 1px;
    bottom: 1px;
    border-width: 149px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: black white;
}

.crossed:after {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    left: 1px;
    right: 1px;
    top: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    border-width: 149px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: white transparent;
}

<div class='crossed'></div>

Explanation, as requested:

Rather than actually drawing diagonal lines, it occurred to me we can instead color the so-called negative space triangles adjacent to where we want to see these lines. The trick I came up with to accomplish this exploits the fact that multi-colored CSS borders are bevelled diagonally:

.borders {
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: black;
    border-width: 40px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: red blue green yellow;
}

<div class='borders'></div>

To make things fit the way we want, we choose an inner rectangle with dimensions 0 and LINE_THICKNESS pixels, and another one with those dimensions reversed:

.r1 { width: 10px;
      height: 0;
      border-width: 40px;
      border-style: solid;
      border-color: red blue;
      margin-bottom: 10px; }
.r2 { width: 0;
      height: 10px;
      border-width: 40px;
      border-style: solid;
      border-color: blue transparent; }

<div class='r1'></div><div class='r2'></div>

Finally, use the :before and :after pseudo-selectors and position relative/absolute as a neat way to insert the borders of both of the above rectangles on top of each other into your HTML element of choice, to produce a diagonal cross. Note that results probably look best with a thin LINE_THICKNESS value, such as 1px.