Question

I am using wordpress to generate a ul with anchor tags, and I have individual classes for each item, I am setting a background image for each anchor tag with the following code

What I am wanting to do is hide the text for the list item anchor, while still setting a background image for it.

.shop a {
    background-image:url('../images/shopFull.png');
    width:209px;
    height: 74px;
    display:block;
}

Here is the outputted html

<nav class="menu-main-navigation-container"><ul id="menu-main-navigation" class="nav-bar"><li id="menu-item-22" class="shop menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-22"><a href="http://localhost:8888/goodMorningMoon/shop/">Shop</a></li>
<li id="menu-item-21" class="services menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-21"><a href="http://localhost:8888/goodMorningMoon/services/">Services</a></li>
<li id="menu-item-23" class="blog menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-23"><a href="http://localhost:8888/goodMorningMoon/blog/">blog</a></li>
<li id="menu-item-20" class="contact menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-20"><a href="http://localhost:8888/goodMorningMoon/contact/">Contact</a></li>
</ul></nav>

Answer 1

Use text-indent ^{MDN docs} and overflow:hidden.

shop a {
    background-image:url('../images/shopFull.png'); 
    width:209px; 
    height: 74px; 
    display:block;

    text-indent:-9999px;
    overflow:hidden;
}