Question

Is there any cross-browser way to italicize select options?
With the following CSS and HTML, FireFox shows the second option in italics, but not the third.
None of the options are italicized in IE 7 or Safari.

<style>
    option.bravo
    {
        font-style: italic;
    }
</style>

<select>
    <option>Alpha</option>
    <option class="bravo">Bravo</option>
    <option><i>Charlie</i></option>
<select>

Am I correct in assuming this is not possible?

Answer 1

This page has a nice chart of browser support of styling select, option and optgroup: http://www.electrictoolbox.com/style-select-optgroup-options-css/

According to that, the like the only option style that’s cross-browser is color.