Is it possible to apply CSS to half of a character?

Question

What I am looking for:

A way to style one HALF of a character. (In this case, half the letter being transparent)

What I have currently searched for and tried (With no luck):

• Methods for styling half of a character/letter
• Styling part of a character with CSS or JavaScript
• Apply CSS to 50% of a character

Below is an example of what I am trying to obtain.

Does a CSS or JavaScript solution exist for this, or am I going to have to resort to images? I would prefer not to go the image route as this text will end up being generated dynamically.

---

UPDATE:

Since many have asked why I would ever want to style half of a character, this is why. My city had recently spent $250,000 to define a new "brand" for itself. This logo is what they came up with. Many people have complained about the simplicity and lack of creativity and continue to do so. My goal was to come up with this website as a joke. Type in 'Halifax' and you will see what I mean.

Answer 1

Part 1: Basic Solution

This works on any dynamic text, or a single character, and is all automated. All you need to do is add a class on the target text and the rest is taken care of.

Also, the accessibility of the original text is preserved for screen readers for the blind or visually impaired.

Explanation for a single character:

Pure CSS. All you need to do is to apply .halfStyle class to each element that contains the character you want to be half-styled.

For each span element containing the character, you can create a data attribute, for example here data-content="X", and on the pseudo element use content: attr(data-content); so the .halfStyle:before class will be dynamic and you won't need to hard code it for every instance.

Explanation for any text:

Simply add textToHalfStyle class to the element containing the text.

// jQuery for automated mode
jQuery(function($) {
    var text, chars, $el, i, output;

    // Iterate over all class occurences
    $('.textToHalfStyle').each(function(idx, el) {
    $el = $(el);
    text = $el.text();
    chars = text.split('');

    // Set the screen-reader text
    $el.html('<span style="position: absolute !important;clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);">' + text + '</span>');

    // Reset output for appending
    output = '';

    // Iterate over all chars in the text
    for (i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
        // Create a styled element for each character and append to container
        output += '<span aria-hidden="true" class="halfStyle" data-content="' + chars[i] + '">' + chars[i] + '</span>';
    }

    // Write to DOM only once
    $el.append(output);
  });
});

.halfStyle {
    position: relative;
    display: inline-block;
    font-size: 80px; /* or any font size will work */
    color: black; /* or transparent, any color */
    overflow: hidden;
    white-space: pre; /* to preserve the spaces from collapsing */
}

.halfStyle:before {
    display: block;
    z-index: 1;
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 50%;
    content: attr(data-content); /* dynamic content for the pseudo element */
    overflow: hidden;
    color: #f00;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p>Single Characters:</p>
<span class="halfStyle" data-content="X">X</span>
<span class="halfStyle" data-content="Y">Y</span>
<span class="halfStyle" data-content="Z">Z</span>
<span class="halfStyle" data-content="A">A</span>

<hr/>
<p>Automated:</p>

<span class="textToHalfStyle">Half-style, please.</span>