How to use text as background opposed to using an image? CSS - html

Question

Just like the Title says, "How to use text as a background instead of an image?"
I'm making a little application, that I personally think is cool but will probably be a waste of peoples time, and am altering the button in the drop down button to an upside down triangle using this html code ▼ . I'm not talking about setting the z-index or anything just simply placing a character for the little arrow. I thought about leaving it blank but I don't think users would understand that they are supposed to use the menu if I did so. Therefore I'm going to use the upside down triangle.
My CSS for the drop-down list is set up like this
select {
border: none;
overflow: hidden;
background: no-repeat right #ffffff;
-moz-appearance: none;
-webkit-appearance: none;
text-indent: 0.01px;
text-overflow: '';
}

Answer 1

Put the text inside an HTML tag with class .text-background, set CSS styles to
.text-background {
position: absolute;
z-index: 1;
}
and set z-index to the elements you want to be on top of the text with z-index higher than 1.
edit:
If you know what the size of the select element is, you probably want to position that text over the dropdown. This however will block the button.
JSFiddle
If you want better looks and functionality you can use a 3rd party libraries such as this or this.
edit 2:
I just found this CSS only solution given by Danield that's probably going to suite your needs better.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/13968900/1419575

Answer 2

Try This, as suggested by Paulo Bergantino:
JS Fiddle
Click Here
HTML
<div id="container">
<div id="background">
Text to have as background
</div>
Normal contents
</div>
CSS
#container{
position: relative;
}
#background{
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
bottom: 0;
right: 0;
z-index: -1;
overflow: hidden;
}