Css overflow wrap break word

The overflow-wrap CSS property applies to inline elements, setting whether the browser should insert line breaks within an otherwise unbreakable string to prevent text from overflowing its line box.

Try it

Note: In contrast to word-break, overflow-wrap will only create a break if an entire word cannot be placed on its own line without overflowing.

The property was originally a nonstandard and unprefixed Microsoft extension called word-wrap, and was implemented by most browsers with the same name. It has since been renamed to overflow-wrap, with word-wrap being an alias.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
overflow-wrap: normal;
overflow-wrap: break-word;
overflow-wrap: anywhere;

/* Global values */
overflow-wrap: inherit;
overflow-wrap: initial;
overflow-wrap: revert;
overflow-wrap: revert-layer;
overflow-wrap: unset;

The overflow-wrap property is specified as a single keyword chosen from the list of values below.

Values

normal

Lines may only break at normal word break points (such as a space between two words).

anywhere

To prevent overflow, an otherwise unbreakable string of characters — like a long word or URL — may be broken at any point if there are no otherwise-acceptable break points in the line. No hyphenation character is inserted at the break point. Soft wrap opportunities introduced by the word break are considered when calculating min-content intrinsic sizes.

break-word

The same as the anywhere value, with normally unbreakable words allowed to be broken at arbitrary points if there are no otherwise acceptable break points in the line, but soft wrap opportunities introduced by the word break are NOT considered when calculating min-content intrinsic sizes.

Formal definition

Initial value normal
Applies to non-replaced inline elements
Inherited yes
Computed value as specified
Animation type discrete

Formal syntax

overflow-wrap = 
normal |
break-word |
anywhere

Examples

Comparing overflow-wrap, word-break, and hyphens

This example compares the results of overflow-wrap, word-break, and hyphens when breaking up a long word.

HTML

<p>
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="normal">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>, though
  I've never been there myself. (<code>normal</code>)
</p>
<p>
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="ow-anywhere">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>,
  though I've never been there myself. (<code>overflow-wrap: anywhere</code>)
</p>
<p>
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="ow-break-word">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>,
  though I've never been there myself. (<code>overflow-wrap: break-word</code>)
</p>
<p>
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="word-break">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>,
  though I've never been there myself. (<code>word-break</code>)
</p>
<p>
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="hyphens">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>, though
  I've never been there myself. (<code>hyphens</code>, without
  <code>lang</code> attribute)
</p>
<p lang="en">
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="hyphens">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>, though
  I've never been there myself. (<code>hyphens</code>, English rules)
</p>
<p class="hyphens" lang="de">
  They say the fishing is excellent at Lake
  <em class="hyphens">Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg</em>, though
  I've never been there myself. (<code>hyphens</code>, German rules)
</p>

CSS

p {
  width: 13em;
  margin: 2px;
  background: gold;
}

.ow-anywhere {
  overflow-wrap: anywhere;
}

.ow-break-word {
  overflow-wrap: break-word;
}

.word-break {
  word-break: break-all;
}

.hyphens {
  hyphens: auto;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Module Level 3
# overflow-wrap-property

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also

Here are the exact differences: (based on testing in Chrome v81, and confirming my observations by referencing the spec)

white-space

normal (default): collapses whitespace-chains and line-breaks; adds line-breaks where needed
nowrap: collapses whitespace-chains and line-breaks; doesn’t add line-breaks
pre-line: collapses whitespace-chains; adds line-breaks where needed
pre-wrap: no collapsing; adds line-breaks where needed
break-spaces: same as pre-wrap, except with spaces able to trigger line-break-adding
pre: no collapsing; doesn’t add line-breaks

Note: If the selected white-space value lists «doesn’t add line-breaks», the line-break behavior of the following properties is unable to be applied (ie. ignored).

word-break

normal (default): breaks line at end of last word fitting within container [if one exists], else line left unbroken
break-word: breaks line at end of last word fitting within container [if one exists], else at end of container
break-all: breaks line at end of container [can split a word, even with nearby whitespace]

overflow-wrap (legacy name: word-wrap)

normal (default): breaks line at end of last word fitting within container [if one exists], else line left unbroken
break-word: breaks line at end of last word fitting within container [if one exists], else at end of container [if in non-flex container], else line left unbroken
anywhere: breaks line at end of last word fitting within container [if one exists], else at end of container [so same as word-break: break-word]

Note that for overflow-wrap: break-word (as for any combination that leaves lines too long for the container), the unbroken line can cause a flex container to expand beyond the flex ratio specified (forcing other flex containers to shrink to account for the too-long content).

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

От автора: в наши дни очень важно сделать сайт адаптивным, чтобы он правильно отображался на всех устройствах. К сожалению, несмотря на все усилия, вы все равно можете получить неработающие макеты. Иногда макеты нарушаются из-за того, что некоторые слова слишком длинные, чтобы уместиться в контейнере.

Переполнение контента может произойти, когда вы имеете дело с пользовательским контентом, который вы не можете контролировать. Типичный пример — раздел комментариев в блоге. Следовательно, вам необходимо применить соответствующий стиль, чтобы содержимое не переполняло свой контейнер.

Вы можете использовать свойства CSS word-wrap, overflow-wrap или word-break для обертывания или переноса слов, которые в противном случае переполнили бы их контейнер. Эта статья представляет собой подробное руководство по свойствам CSS word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break, а также о том, как вы можете использовать их, чтобы не допустить, чтобы переполнение содержимого разрушало ваш красиво оформленный макет.

Прежде чем мы начнем, давайте разберемся, как браузеры переносят контент в следующую секцию.

Как происходит перенос контента в браузерах?

Браузеры выполняют перенос содержимого в разрешенные брейкпоинты, называемый «мягкой оберткой». Браузер будет обертывать контент с использованием мягкой обертки, если таковая возможна, чтобы минимизировать переполнение контента.

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В английской и большинстве подобных ей системах письма возможности мягкой обертки по умолчанию появляются на границах слов при отсутствии переносов. Поскольку слова ограничены пробелами и знаками препинания, именно здесь используются мягкие обертки.

Хотя в английских текстах для символов пробела используются мягкие обертки, для неанглийских систем письма ситуация может быть иной. Некоторые языки не используют пробелов для разделения слов. Следовательно, упаковка содержимого зависит от языка или системы письма. Значение атрибута lang, которое вы указываете в элементе html, в основном используется для определения того, какая языковая система используется. В этой статье основное внимание будет уделено системе письма на английском языке.

Переноса по умолчанию при использовании мягкой обертки может быть недостаточно, если вы имеете дело с длинным непрерывным текстом, например URL-адресами или пользовательским контентом, который у вас недостаточно или совсем не контролируется.

Прежде чем мы перейдем к подробному объяснению этих свойств CSS, давайте посмотрим на различия между мягким переносом и принудительным переносом строки в разделе ниже.

В чем разница между мягким и принудительным переносом строки?

Любой перенос текста, который происходит при использовании мягкого переноса, называется разрывом мягкого переноса. Чтобы перенос происходил при использовании мягкого обертывания, необходимо убедиться, что обертывание включено. Например, установка значения nowrap для свойства white-space отключит перенос.

С другой стороны, принудительные разрывы строк возникают из-за явного управления разрывом строк или указания конца или начала блоков текста.

CSS свойства word-wrap и overflow-wrap

Название word-wrap — это устаревшее имя свойства overflow-wrap. Word-wrap изначально было расширением Microsoft. Оно не было частью стандарта CSS, хотя большинство браузеров реализовали его под названием word-wrap. Согласно проекту спецификации CSS3, браузеры должны рассматривать word-wrap как устаревший псевдоним для свойства overflow-wrap.

В последних версиях популярных веб-браузеров реализовано свойство overflow-wrap. В проекте спецификации CSS3 указано следующее определение overflow-wrap: Это свойство указывает, может ли браузер разбивать строку на недопустимые точки переноса, чтобы предотвратить переполнение, когда неразрывная строка слишком длинна, чтобы поместиться в границах контейнера.

Если у вас есть свойство white-space для элемента, вам необходимо установить для него значение allow, чтобы разрешить эффект переноса для overflow-wrap. Ниже приведены значения свойства overflow-wrap. Вы также можете использовать глобальные значения inherit, initial, revert и unset для overflow-wrap, но здесь мы не будем их рассматривать.

overflow-wrap: normal;

overflow-wrap: anywhere;

overflow-wrap: break-word;

Ниже мы рассмотрим значения свойства CSS overflow-wrap, чтобы понять его поведение.

Normal

Применение значения normal заставит браузер использовать поведение разрыва строки по умолчанию в системе. Поэтому для английского языка и других подобных системах письма разрывы строк будут происходить через пробелы и дефисы:

.my-element{

    overflow-wrap: normal;

}

На изображении ниже в тексте есть слово, длина которого превышает длину контейнера. Поскольку нет возможности мягкого переноса, а значение свойства overflow-wrap равно normal, слово переполняет свой контейнер. Это является поведением системы при переносе строк по умолчанию.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Anywhere

Использование значения в аnywhere приведет к разрыву неразрывной строки в произвольных точках между двумя символами. Аnywhere не будет добавлять символ дефиса, даже если вы примените свойство hyphens к этому элементу.
Браузер разорвет слово только в том случае, если отображение слова приведет к переполнению. Если слово вызывает переполнение, оно будет разорвано в точке, где это переполнение произошло.

Когда вы используете аnywhere, браузер будет учитывать возможности мягкого переноса, предоставляемые разрывом слова, при вычислении внутренних размеров min-content:

.my-element{

   overflow-wrap: anywhere;

}

В отличие от предыдущего примера, где мы использовали overflow-wrap: normal, на изображении ниже мы используем overflow-wrap :where. Слово-переполнение, которое невозможно разбить, разбивается на фрагменты текста с помощью overflow-wrap: anywhere, чтобы оно поместилось в своем контейнере.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Значение anywhere не поддерживается некоторыми браузерами. На изображении ниже показана поддержка браузерами по данным caniuse.com. Поэтому не рекомендуется использовать overflow-wrap: anywhere, если вы хотите иметь более высокую поддержку браузера.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Break-word

Значение break-word похоже на любое другое с точки зрения функциональности. Если браузер может перенести слово без переполнения, то он это сделает. Однако, если слово все еще переполняет контейнер, даже когда оно находится в новой строке, браузер разделит его в точке, где снова произошло бы переполнение:

.my-element{

   overflow-wrap: break-word;

}

На изображении ниже показано, как браузер прерывает переполненный текст в предыдущем разделе, когда вы применяете overflow-wrap: break-word. Вы заметите, что изображение ниже выглядит так же, как изображение в последнем примере. Разница между overflow-wrap: anywhere и overflow-wrap: break-word заключается в вычислении внутренних размеров min-content.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Разница между anywhere и break-word очевидна при вычислении внутренних размеров min-content. С break-word браузер не учитывает возможности мягкого переноса, предоставляемые разрывом слова, при вычислении внутренних размеров min-content, но он учитывает возможности мягкого переноса при использовании anywhere.

Значение break-word имеет достойный охват среди последних версий десктопных браузеров. К сожалению, этого нельзя сказать об их мобильном аналоге. Поэтому безопаснее использовать унаследованный word-wrap: break-word вместо более нового overflow-wrap: break-word.

На изображении ниже показана поддержка браузеров overflow-wrap: break-word согласно caniuse.com. Вы заметите, что последние версии десктопных браузеров имеют поддержку, в то время как поддержка некоторых мобильных браузеров неизвестна.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Свойство Word-break

Word-break — еще одно свойство CSS, которое вы можете использовать для указания возможности мягкого переноса между символами. Вы можете использовать это свойство, чтобы разбить слово в том месте, где могло произойти переполнение, и перенести его на следующую строку.

Ниже приводится то, что говорится о свойстве CSS word-break в спецификации CSS3:

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Это свойство определяет возможности мягкого переноса между буквами, то есть там, где это «нормально» и допустимо для разрывов строк текста. Word-break контролирует, какие типы букв браузер может объединять в неразрывные «слова», заставляя символы CJK вести себя как текст, не относящийся к CJK, или наоборот.

Ниже приведены возможные значения CSS-свойства word-break. Как и для overflow-wrap, вы также можете использовать глобальные значения inherit, initial, revert и unset, но мы не будем рассматривать их здесь:

word-break: normal;

word-break: break-all;

word-break: keep-all;

Break-word также является значением для CSS-свойства word-break, хотя оно устарело. Однако, браузеры по-прежнему поддерживают его. Указание этого свойства имеет тот же эффект, что и word-break: normal и overflow-wrap :where.

Теперь, когда мы знакомы с CSS-свойством break-word и соответствующими ему значениями, давайте подробно рассмотрим их.

Normal

Установка для свойства word-break значение normal будет применять правила разбиения по словам по умолчанию:

.my-element{

   word-break: normal;

}

На изображении ниже показано, что происходит, когда вы применяете стиль word-break: normal к блоку текста, который содержит слово длиннее, чем его контейнер. Вы видите, что в браузере действуют обычные правила разбиения на слова.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Break-all

Значение break-all вставит разрыв строки именно в том месте, где текст переполнился бы для некитайских, неяпонских и некорейских систем письма. Слово не будет помещено в отдельную строку, даже если это предотвратит необходимость вставки разрыва строки:

.my-element{

   word-break: break-all;

}

На изображении ниже я применил стиль word-break:break-all к элементу p шириной 240 пикселей, содержащему переполненный текст. Браузер вставил разрыв строки в точке, где могло произойти переполнение, и перенес оставшийся текст в следующую строку.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Использование break-all приведет к разрыву слова между двумя символами именно в том месте, где произойдет переполнение в английском и других родственных языковых системах. Однако это не применимо к текстам на китайском, японском и корейском языках (CJK).

Он не применяет то же поведение к текстам CJK, потому что системы письма CJK имеют свои собственные правила для применения брейкпоинтов. Создание разрыва строки между двумя символами произвольно во избежание переполнения может значительно изменить общий смысл текста. Для систем CJK браузер будет применять разрывы строк в том месте, где такие разрывы разрешены.

На изображении ниже показана поддержка браузером word-break: break-word согласно caniuse.com. Хотя последние версии современных веб-браузеров поддерживают это значение, поддержка среди некоторых мобильных браузеров неизвестна.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Keep-all

Если вы используете значение keep-all, браузер не будет применять разрывы слов к текстам CJK, даже если происходит переполнение содержимого. Эффект от применения значения keep-all такой же, как и у normal для систем письма, отличных от CJK:

.my-element{

   word-break: keep-all;

}

На изображении ниже применение word-break: keep-all имеет тот же эффект, что и word-break: normal, потому что я использую систему письма, отличную от CJK (английский язык).

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

На изображении ниже показана поддержка браузером word-break: keep-all согласно caniuse.com. Это значение поддерживается в большинстве популярных десктопных браузеров. К сожалению, это не относится к мобильным браузерам.

Полное руководство по word-wrap, overflow-wrap и word-break в CSS

Теперь, когда мы рассмотрели свойства CSS overflow-wrap и word-break, в чем разница между ними?

В чем разница между overflow-wrap и разр word-break?

Вы можете использовать CSS свойства overflow-wrap и word-break для управления переполнением содержимого. Однако существуют различия в способах обработки этих двух свойств.

Использование overflow-wrap приведет к переносу всего переполненного слова в новую строку, если оно может поместиться в одну строку, не переполняя свой контейнер. Браузер разорвет слово только в том случае, если он не сможет разместить слово в новой строке без переполнения. В большинстве случаев свойство overflow-wrap или его устаревшее название word-wrap может быть достаточным для управления переполнением содержимого.

Свойство overflow-wrap относительно новое, поэтому его поддержка браузером ограничена. Вместо этого вы можете использовать устаревшее название word-wrap, если вам нужна более высокая поддержка браузером.

С другой стороны, word-break безжалостно разорвет слово, которое выходит за границы, между двумя символами, даже если размещение его в новой строке устранит необходимость в разрыве слова. Кроме того, некоторые системы письма, такие как системы письма CJK, имеют строгие правила разбиения по словам, которые браузер принимает во внимание при создании разрывов строк с помощью word-break.

Заключение

Как указывалось в предыдущих разделах, overflow-wrap и word-break во многом схожи. Вы можете использовать оба из них для управления разрывом строки.

Название overflow-wrap является псевдонимом устаревшего свойства word-wrap. Следовательно, вы можете использовать их как взаимозаменяемые. Однако стоит отметить, что поддержка браузером нового свойства overflow-wrap по-прежнему невысока. Вам лучше использовать word-wrap вместо overflow-wrap, если вы хотите почти универсальную поддержку браузера. Согласно проекту спецификации CSS3, браузеры должны продолжать поддерживать word-wrap.

Если вы хотите управлять переполнением содержимого, вам достаточно использовать overflow-wrap или его устаревшее название word-wrap.

Вы также можете использовать word-break, чтобы разбить слово между двумя символами, если слово выходит за пределы своего контейнера. Как и при overflow-wrap, при использовании word-break нужно действовать осторожно из-за ограничений в поддержке браузера.

Теперь, когда вы знаете поведение, связанное с этими двумя свойствами, вы можете решить, где и когда их использовать.

Автор: Joseph Mawa

Источник: blog.logrocket.com

Редакция: Команда webformyself.

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Let’s talk about the various ways we can control how text wraps (or doesn’t wrap) on a web page. CSS gives us a lot of tools to make sure our text flows the way we want it to, but we’ll also cover some tricks using HTML and special characters.

Box wrapped with long ribbon

Protecting Layout

Normally, text flows to the next line at “soft wrap opportunities”, which is a fancy name for spots you’d expect text to break naturally, like between words or after a hyphen. But sometimes you may find yourself with long spans of text that don’t have soft wrap opportunities, such as really long words or URLs. This can cause all sorts of layout issues. For example, the text may overflow its container, or it might force the container to become too wide and push things out of place.

It’s good defensive coding to anticipate issues from text not breaking. Fortunately, CSS gives us some tools for this.

Getting Overflowing Text to Wrap

Putting overflow-wrap: break-word on an element will allow text to break mid-word if needed. It’ll first try to keep a word unbroken by moving it to the next line, but will then break the word if there’s still not enough room.

See the Pen overflow-wrap: break-word by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

There’s also overflow-wrap: anywhere, which breaks words in the same manner. The difference is in how it affects the min-content size calculation of the element it’s on. It’s pretty easy to see when width is set to min-content.

.top {
width: min-content;
overflow-wrap: break-word;
}

.bottom {
width: min-content;
overflow-wrap: anywhere;
}

See the Pen overflow-wrap + min-content by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

The top element with overflow-wrap: break-word calculates min-content as if no words are broken, so its width becomes the width of the longest word. The bottom element with overflow-wrap: anywhere calculates min-content with all the breaks it can create. Since a break can happen, well, anywhere, min-content ends up being the width of a single character.

Remember, this behavior only comes into play when min-content is involved. If we had set width to some rigid value, we’d see the same word-breaking result for both.

Breaking Words without Mercy

Another option for breaking words is word-break: break-all. This one won’t even try to keep words whole — it’ll just break them immediately. Take a look.

See the Pen word-break: break-all by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Notice how the long word isn’t moved to the next line, like it would have been when using overflow. Also notice how “words” is broken, even though it would have fit just fine on the next line.

word-break: break-all has no problem breaking words, but it’s still cautious around punctuation. For example, it’ll avoid starting a line with the period from the end of a sentence. If you want truly merciless breaking, even with punctuation, use line-break: anywhere.

See the Pen word-break: break-all vs line-break: anywhere by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

See how word-break: break-all moves the “k” down to avoid starting the second line with “.”? Meanwhile, line-break: anywhere doesn’t care.

Excessive Punctuation

Let’s see how the CSS properties we’ve covered so far handle excessively long spans of punctuation.

See the Pen Excessive Punctuation by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

overflow-wrap: break-word and line-break: anywhere are able to keep things contained, but then there’s word-break: break-all being weird with punctuation again — this time resulting in overflowing text.

It’s something to keep in mind. If you absolutely do not want text to overflow, be aware that word-break: break-all won’t stop runaway punctuation.

Specifying Where Words Can Break

For more control, you can manually insert word break opportunities into your text with <wbr>. You can also use a “zero-width space”, provided by the &ZeroWidthSpace; HTML entity (yes, it must be capitalized just as you see it!).

Let’s see these in action by wrapping a long URL that normally wouldn’t wrap, but only between segments.

  <!-- normal -->
<p>https://subdomain.somewhere.co.uk</p>

<!-- <wbr> -->
<p>https://subdomain<wbr>.somewhere<wbr>.co<wbr>.uk</p>

<!-- &ZeroWidthSpace; -->
<p>https://subdomain&ZeroWidthSpace;.somewhere&ZeroWidthSpace;.co&ZeroWidthSpace;.uk</p>

See the Pen Manual Word Break Opportunities by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Automatic Hyphenation

You can tell the browser to break and hyphenate words where appropriate by using hyphens: auto. Hyphenation rules are determined by language, so you’ll need to tell the browser what language to use. This is done by specifying the lang attribute in HTML, possibly on the relevant element directly, or on <html>.

<p lang="en">This is just a bit of arbitrary text to show hyphenation in action.</p>
  p {
-webkit-hyphens: auto; /* for Safari */
hyphens: auto;
}

See the Pen hyphens: auto by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Manual Hyphenation

You can also take matters into your own hands and insert a “soft hyphen” manually with the &shy; HTML entity. It won’t be visible unless the browser decides to wrap there, in which case a hyphen will appear. Notice in the following demo how we’re using &shy; twice, but we only see it once where the text wraps.

<p lang="en">Magic? Abraca&shy;dabra? Abraca&shy;dabra!</p>

See the Pen Soft Hyphen by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

hyphens must be set to either auto or manual for &shy; to display properly. Conveniently, the default is hyphens: manual, so you should be good without any additional CSS (unless something has declared hyphens: none for some reason).

Preventing Text from Wrapping

Let’s switch things up. There may be times when you don’t want text to wrap freely, so that you have better control over how your content is presented. There are a couple of tools to help you with this.

First up is white-space: nowrap. Put it on an element to prevent its text from wrapping naturally.

See the Pen white-space: nowrap by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Preformatting Text

There’s also white-space: pre, which will wrap text just as you have it typed in your HTML. Be careful though, as it will also preserve spaces from your HTML, so be mindful of your formatting. You can also use a <pre> tag to get the same results (it has white-space: pre on it by default).

<!-- the formatting of this HTML results in extra whitespace! -->
<p>
What's worse, ignorance or apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.
</p>

<!-- tighter formatting that "hugs" the text -->
<p>What's worse, ignorance or apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.</p>

<!-- same as above, but using <pre> -->
<pre>What's worse, ignorance or apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.</pre>

p {
white-space: pre;
}

pre {
/* <pre> sets font-family: monospace, but we can undo that */
font-family: inherit;
}

See the Pen Preformatted Text by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

A Break, Where Words Can’t Break?

For line breaks, you can use <br> inside of an element with white-space: nowrap or white-space: pre just fine. The text will wrap.

But what happens if you use <wbr> in such an element? Kind of a trick question… because browsers don’t agree. Chrome/Edge will recognize the <wbr> and potentially wrap, while Firefox/Safari won’t.

When it comes to the zero-width space (&ZeroWidthSpace;) though, browsers are consistent. None will wrap it with white-space: nowrap or white-space: pre.

<p>Darth Vader: Nooooooooooooo<br>oooo!</p>

<p>Darth Vader: Nooooooooooooo<wbr>oooo!</p>

<p>Darth Vader: Nooooooooooooo&ZeroWidthSpace;oooo!</p>

See the Pen white-space: nowrap + breaking lines by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Non-Breaking Spaces

Sometimes you may want text to wrap freely, except in very specific places. Good news! There are a few specialized HTML entities that let you do exactly this.

A “non-breaking space” (&nbsp;) is often used to keep space between words, but disallow a line break between them.

<p>Something I've noticed is designers don't seem to like orphans.</p>

<p>Something I've noticed is designers don't seem to like&nbsp;orphans.</p>

See the Pen Non-Breaking Space by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Word Joiners and Non-Breaking Hyphens

It’s possible for text to naturally wrap even without spaces, such as after a hyphen. To prevent wrapping without adding a space, you can use &NoBreak; (case-sensitive!) to get a “word joiner”. For hyphens specifically, you can get a “non-breaking hyphen” with (it doesn’t have a nice HTML entity name).

  <p>Turn right here to get on I-85.</p>

<p>Turn right here to get on I-&NoBreak;85.</p>

<p>Turn right here to get on I85.</p>

See the Pen Word Joiners and Non-Breaking Hyphens by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

CJK Text and Breaking Words

CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) text behaves differently than non-CJK text in some ways. Certain CSS properties and values can be used for additional control over the wrapping of CJK text specifically.

Default browser behavior allows words to be broken in CJK text. This means that word-break: normal (the default) and word-break: break-all will give you the same results. However, you can use word-break: keep-all to prevent CJK text from wrapping within words (non-CJK text will be unaffected).

Here’s an example in Korean. Note how the word “자랑스럽게” does or doesn’t break.

See the Pen CJK Text + word-break by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Be careful though, Chinese and Japanese don’t use spaces between words like Korean does, so word-break: keep-all can easily cause long overflowing text if not otherwise handled.

CJK Text and Line Break Rules

We talked about line-break: anywhere earlier with non-CJK text and how it has no problem breaking at punctuation. The same is true with CJK text.

Here’s an example in Japanese. Note how “。” is or isn’t allowed to start a line.

See the Pen CJK Text + line-break by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

There are other values for line-break that affect how CJK text wraps: loose, normal, and strict. These values instruct the browser on which rules to use when deciding where to insert line breaks. The W3C describes several rules and it’s possible for browsers to add their own rules as well.

Worth Mentioning: Element Overflow

The overflow CSS property isn’t specific to text, but is often used to ensure text doesn’t render outside of an element that has its width or height constrained.

.top {
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: auto;
}

.bottom {
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: hidden;
}

See the Pen Element Overflow by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

As you can see, a value of auto allows the content to be scrolled (auto only shows scrollbars when needed, scroll shows them always). A value of hidden simply cuts off the content and leaves it at that.

overflow is actually shorthand to set both overflow-x and overflow-y, for horizontal and vertical overflow respectively. Feel free to use what suits you best.

We can build upon overflow: hidden by adding text-overflow: ellipsis. Text will still be cut off, but we’ll get some nice ellipsis as an indication.

p {
white-space: nowrap;
overflow: hidden;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

See the Pen text-overflow: ellipsis by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

Bonus Trick: Pseudo-Element Line Break

You can force a line break before and/or after an inline element, while keeping it as an inline element, with a little bit of pseudo-element trickery.

First, set the content of a ::before or ::after pseudo-element to 'A', which will give you the new line character. Then set white-space: pre to ensure the new line character is respected.

<p>Things that go <span>bump</span> in the night.</p>
span {
background-color: #000;
}

span::before, span::after {
content: 'A';
white-space: pre;
}

See the Pen Pseudo-Element Line Breaks by Will Boyd (@lonekorean) on CodePen.

We could have just put display: block on the <span> to get the same breaks, but then it would no longer be inline. The background-color makes it easy to see that with this method, we still have an inline element.

Bonus Notes

  • There’s an older CSS property named word-wrap. It’s non-standard and browsers now treat it as an alias for overflow-wrap.
  • The white-space CSS property has some other values we didn’t cover: pre-wrap, pre-line, and break-spaces. Unlike the ones we did cover, these don’t prevent text wrapping.
  • The CSS Text Module Level 4 spec describes a text-wrap CSS property that looks interesting, but at the time of writing, no browser implements it.

Time to “Wrap” Things Up

There’s so much that goes into flowing text on a web page. Most of the time you don’t really need to think about it, since browsers handle it for you. For the times when you do need more control, it’s nice to know that you have a lot of options.

Writing this was definitely a rabbit hole for me as I kept finding more and more things to talk about. I hope I’ve shown you enough to get your text to break and flow just the way you want it.

Thanks for reading!

Editor’s note: This complete guide to word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break in CSS was last updated 24 February 2023 to reflect the reflect the most recent version of CSS, include interactive code examples, and include a section on how to wrap text using CSS. To learn more about the overflow property, check out our guide to CSS overflow.

Making a site responsive so that it displays correctly on all devices is very important in this day and age. Unfortunately, despite your best efforts to do so, you may still end up with broken layouts. Broken layouts can happen when certain words are too long to fit in their container. Content overflow can occur when you are dealing with user-generated content you have no control over, such as the comments section of a post. Therefore, you need to apply styling to prevent content from overflowing their container.

Content overflow is a common problem for frontend developers. On the web, overflow occurs when your content doesn’t fit entirely within its containing element. As a result, it spills outside. In CSS, you can manage content overflow mainly using the overflow, word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break CSS properties. However, our focus in this article will be on the word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break CSS properties.

Jump ahead:

  • Using word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break CSS properties
    • How does content wrapping occur in browsers?
    • What is the difference between a soft wrap break and a forced line break?
  • Understanding the Word-wrap and overflow-wrap CSS properties
    • Normal
    • Anywhere
    • Break-word
  • Implementing the Word-break CSS property
    • Setting word-break to Normal
    • The Break-all value
    • Using the Keep-all value
  • What is the difference between overflow-wrap and word-break?
  • How to wrap text using CSS
  • Troubleshooting CSS content overflow with Chrome DevTools

Using word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break CSS properties

You can use the word-wrap, overflow-wrap, or word-break CSS properties to wrap or break words that would otherwise overflow their container. This article is an in-depth tutorial on the word-wrap, overflow-wrap, and word-break CSS properties and how you can use them to prevent content overflow from ruining your nicely styled layout. Before we get started, let us understand how browsers wrap content in the next section.

How does content wrapping occur in browsers?

Browsers and other user agents perform content wrapping at allowed breakpoints, referred to as soft wrap opportunities. A browser will wrap content at a soft wrap opportunity, if one exists, to minimize content overflow. In English and other similar writing systems, soft wrap opportunities occur by default at word boundaries in the absence of hyphenation. Because words are bound by spaces and punctuation, that is where soft wraps occur.

Although soft wraps occur in space characters in English texts, the situation might be different for non-English writing systems. Some languages do not use spaces to separate words, meaning that content wrapping depends on the language or writing system. The value of the lang attribute you specify on the HTML element is mostly used to determine which language system is used.

This article will focus mainly on the English language writing system. The default wrapping at soft wrap opportunities may not be sufficient if you are dealing with long, continuous text, such as URLs or user-generated content, which you have very little or no control over. Before we go into a detailed explanation of these CSS properties, let’s look at the differences between soft wrap break and forced line break in the section below.

What is the difference between a soft wrap break and a forced line break?

Any text wrap that occurs at a soft wrap opportunity is referred to as a soft wrap break. For wrapping to occur at a soft wrap opportunity, you need to make sure you’ve enabled wrapping. For example, setting the value of white-space CSS property to nowrap will disable wrapping. Forced line breaks are caused by explicit line-breaking controls or line breaks marking the end or start of blocks of text.

Understanding the Word-wrap and overflow-wrap CSS properties

The name word-wrap is the legacy name for the overflow-wrap CSS property. Word-wrap was originally a non-prefixed Microsoft extension and was not part of the CSS standard, though most browsers implemented it with the name word-wrap. According to the draft CSS3 specification, browsers should treat word-wrap as a legacy name alias of the overflow-wrap property for compatibility.

Most recent versions of popular web browsers have implemented the overflow-wrap property. The draft CSS3 specification refers to the overflow-wrap property as:

This property specifies whether the browser may break at otherwise disallowed points within a line to prevent overflow when an otherwise-unbreakable string is too long to fit within the line box.

If you have a white-space property on an element, you need to set its value to allow wrapping for overflow-wrap to have an effect. Below are the values of the overflow-wrap property:

overflow-wrap: normal;
overflow-wrap: anywhere;
overflow-wrap: break-word;

You can also use the global values inherit, initial, revert, and unset with overflow-wrap, but we won’t cover them here. In the subsections below, we will look at the values of the overflow-wrap CSS property outlined above to understand the behavior of this property.

Normal

Applying the value normal will make the browser use the default line-breaking behavior of the system. For English and other related writing systems, line breaks will therefore occur at whitespaces and hyphens, as shown below:

.my-element{
    overflow-wrap: normal;
}

In the example below, there is a word in the text that is longer than its container. Because there is no soft wrap opportunity and the value of the overflow-wrap property is normal, the word overflows its container. It describes the default line-breaking behavior of the system:

See the Pen
overflow-wrap-normal by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

Anywhere

Using the value anywhere will break an otherwise unbreakable string at arbitrary points between two characters. It will not insert a hyphen character even if you apply the hyphens property on the same element.

The browser will break the word only if displaying the word on its line will cause an overflow. If the word still overflows when placed on its line, it will break the word at the point where an overflow would otherwise occur. When you use anywhere, the browser will consider the soft wrap opportunities introduced by the word break when calculating min-content intrinsic sizes:

.my-element{
   overflow-wrap: anywhere;
}

Unlike in the previous section, where we used overflow-wrap: normal, in the example below, we are using overflow-wrap: anywhere. The overflowing word that is otherwise unbreakable is broken into chunks of text using overflow-wrap: anywhere so that it fits in its container:

See the Pen
overlow-wrap-anywhere by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

Most recent versions of desktop browsers support overflow-wrap: anywhere. However, support for some mobile browsers is either lacking or unknown. The image below shows the browser support:

CSS Overflow-Wrap Compatibility

Break-word

The value break-word is like anywhere in terms of functionality. If the browser can wrap the overflowing word to its line without overflowing, that is what it will do. However, if the word still overflows its container even when it is on its line, the browser will break it at the point where the overflow would otherwise occur:

.my-element{
   overflow-wrap: break-word;
}

The example below shows how the browser breaks the overflowing text when you apply overflow-wrap: break-word:

See the Pen
overflow-wrap-break-word by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

Notice that the text appears the same as in the last subsection. The difference between overflow-wrap: anywhere and overflow-wrap: break-word is in the min-content intrinsic sizes.

The difference between anywhere and break-word is apparent when calculating the min-content intrinsic sizes. With break-word, the browser doesn’t consider the soft wrap opportunities introduced by the word break when calculating min-content intrinsic sizes, but it does with anywhere. For more about min-content intrinsic sizes, check out our guide here.

The value break-word has decent coverage among the most recent versions of desktop browsers. Unfortunately, you cannot say the same about their mobile counterpart. It is, therefore, safer to use the legacy word-wrap: break-word instead of the more recent overflow-wrap: break-word.

The image below shows browser support for overflow-wrap: break-word:

CSS Break-Word Compatibility

The most recent versions of desktop browsers have support, while support for some mobile browsers is unknown.

Implementing the Word-break CSS property

Word-break is another CSS property you can use to specify soft wrap opportunities between characters. You can use this property to break a word at the exact spot where an overflow would occur and wrap it onto the following line.

The draft CSS3 specification refers to the word-break CSS property as:

This property specifies soft wrap opportunities between letters, i.e., where it is “normal” and permissible to break lines of text. It controls what types of letters the browser can glom together to form unbreakable “words” — causing CJK characters to behave like non-CJK text or vice versa.

Below are the possible values of the word-break CSS property. Like overflow-wrap, you can use the global values inherit, initial, revert, and unset with word-break, but we won’t cover them here:

word-break: normal;
word-break: break-all;
word-break: keep-all;

Break-word is also a value of the word-break CSS property, though it was removed. However, browsers still support it for legacy reasons. Specifying this property has the same effect as word-break: normal and overflow-wrap: anywhere.

Now that we know the break-word CSS property and its corresponding values, let us look at them in the subsections below.

Setting word-break to Normal

Setting the value of the word-break property to normal will apply the default word breaking rules:

.my-element{
   word-break: normal;
}

The example below illustrates what happens when you apply the styling word-break: normal to a block of text that contains a word longer than its container:

See the Pen
word-break-normal by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

What you see is the browser’s usual word-breaking rules in effect.

The Break-all value

The value break-all will insert a line break at the exact point where the text would otherwise overflow for non-Chinese, non-Japanese, and non-Korean writing systems. It will not put the word on its own line, even if doing so will prevent the need to insert a line break:

.my-element{
   word-break: break-all;
}

In the example below, I am applying word-break: break-all styling to a p element of width 240px containing an overflowing text. The browser will insert a line break at the point where an overflow would occur and wrap the remaining text to the following line:

See the Pen
word-break-break-all by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

Using break-all will break a word between two characters at the exact point where an overflow would occur in English and other related language systems. However, it won’t apply the same behavior to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) texts.

It doesn’t apply the same behavior for CJK texts because CJK writing systems have their own rules for applying breakpoints. Creating a line break between two characters arbitrarily just for the sake of avoiding overflow might significantly change the overall meaning of the text. For CJK systems, the browser will apply line breaks at the point where such breaks are allowed.

Using the Keep-all value

If you use the value keep-all, the browser will not apply word breaks to CJK texts, even if there is content overflow. The effect of applying keep-all value is the same as that of normal for non-CJK writing systems:

.my-element{
   word-break: keep-all;
}

In the example below, applying word-break: keep-all will have the same effect as word-break: normal for a non-CJK writing system such as English:

See the Pen
word-break-keep-all by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

The image below shows the browser support for word-break: keep-all:

CSS Keep-all Compatibility

This value has support in most popular desktop browsers. Unfortunately, it is not the case for mobile browsers. Now that we have looked at the overflow-wrap and word-break CSS properties, what is the difference between the two? The section below will shed light on that.

What is the difference between overflow-wrap and word-break?

You can use the CSS properties overflow-wrap and word-break to manage content overflow. However, there are differences in the way the two properties handle it.

Using overflow-wrap will wrap the entire overflowing word to its line if it can fit in a single line without overflowing its container. The browser will break the word only if it cannot place it on a new line without overflowing. In most cases, the overflow-wrap property or its legacy name word-wrap might manage content overflow. Using word-wrap: break-word will wrap the overflowing word onto a new line and goes ahead to break it between two characters if it still overflows its container.

Word-break will ruthlessly break the overflowing word between two characters even if placing it on its line will negate the need for word break. Some writing systems, like the CJK writing systems, have strict word breaking rules the browser takes into consideration when creating line breaks using word-break.

How to wrap text using CSS

As hinted above, if you want to wrap text or break a word overflowing the confines of its box, your best bet is the overflow-wrap CSS property. You can also use its legacy name, word-wrap. Try the word-break CSS property if the overflow-wrap property doesn’t work for you. However, be aware of the differences between overflow-wrap and word-break highlighted above.

Below is an illustration of the overflow-wrap and word-wrap CSS properties. You can play with the CodePen to understand their effects:

See the Pen
how-to-wrap-text by Joseph Mawa (@nibble0101)
on CodePen.

Troubleshooting CSS content overflow with Chrome DevTools

More often than not, you might need to fix broken layouts caused by content overflow, as complex user interfaces are now commonplace in frontend development. Modern web browsers come with tools for troubleshooting such layout issues, such as Chrome DevTools.

It provides the capability to select an element in the DOM tree so that you can view, add, and remove CSS declarations and much more. It will help you track down the offending CSS style in your layout and fix it with ease.

To open the Chrome DevTools, you can use the F12 key. When open, it looks like in the image below. Selecting an element in the DOM tree will display its corresponding CSS styles. You can modify the styles and see the effect on your layout as you track down the source of the bug:

Using Chrome DevTools With CSS

As already mentioned, if you have white-space property on an element, set its value to allow wrapping for overflow-wrap: anywhere or overflow-wrap: break-word to work.

Setting the value of overflow-wrap property to anywhere or break-word on a table content won’t break an overflowing word like in the examples above. The table will overflow its container and create a horizontal scroll if necessary. To get the table to fit within its container and overflow-wrap to work, set the value of the table-layout property to fixed and set the table width to 100% or to some fixed value.

Conclusion

As pointed out in the above sections, overflow-wrap and word-break are similar in so many ways, and you can use both of them for line-breaking controls. The name overflow-wrap is an alias of the legacy word-wrap property. Therefore, you can use the two interchangeably. However, it is worth mentioning that the browser support for the newer overflow-wrap property is still low. You are better off using word-wrap instead of overflow-wrap if you want near-universal browser support.

According to the draft CSS3 specification, browsers and user agents should continue supporting word-wrap for legacy reasons. If you are looking to manage content overflow, overflow-wrap or its legacy name word-wrap might be sufficient. You can also use word-break to break a word between two characters if the word overflows its container. Just like overflow-wrap, you need to tread with caution when using word-break because of limitations in the browser support.

Now that you know the behavior associated with the two properties, you can decide where and when to use them. Did I miss anything? Leave a comment in the comments section. I will be happy to update this article.

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