How to apply inverse text mask with CSS

Question

I'll try to explain my question with images. Here we go.

1 - This image shows the text masking an image, so far so good, I can do with the following code:

font-size: 120px;
background: url(image-to-be-masked.jpg) repeat 0 0, white;
-webkit-background-clip: text;
-webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;

2 - This other image, the text creates the opposite effect, leaving transparent only the text area. This is what I want:

Has anyone tried it?

Answer 1

I don't think CSS can do that. But you can hack it together using three different nested elements:

• The outermost element contains the background-image
• The middle element contains the middle image
• The inner element contains the text, and has the same background image as the outermost element, masked with background-clip:text; like on your first example.

This works, but is a little cumbersome, as you'll have to compensate the masks background-position to achieve the desired effect. Here is an example: http://jsfiddle.net/dzkTE/.