I’ve been using word-wrap: break-word
to wrap text in div
s and span
s. However, it doesn’t seem to work in table cells. I have a table set to width:100%
, with one row and two columns. Text in columns, although styled with the above word-wrap
, doesn’t wrap. It causes the text to go past the bounds of the cell. This happens on Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.
Here’s what the source looks like:
td {
border: 1px solid;
}
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
</div>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
The long word above is larger than the bounds of my page, but it doesn’t break with the above HTML. I’ve tried the suggestions below of adding text-wrap:suppress
and text-wrap:normal
, but neither helped.
Mark Amery
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asked Aug 11, 2009 at 4:01
8
The following works for me in Internet Explorer. Note the addition of the table-layout:fixed
CSS attribute
td {
border: 1px solid;
}
<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
<tr>
<td style="word-wrap: break-word">
LongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongWord
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Ruslan López
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answered Dec 10, 2009 at 20:15
Marc StoberMarc Stober
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9
<td style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</td>
or
<span style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</span>
answered Oct 8, 2009 at 17:01
Pratik StephenPratik Stephen
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6
You can double-check with Firebug (or similar) that you aren’t accidentally inheriting the following rule:
white-space:nowrap;
This may override your specified line break behaviour and thus break the word wrapping. (Comments by shane lee and Beer Me.) To fix that issue, you can add white-space:normal;
to the style.
Cadoiz
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answered Aug 11, 2009 at 5:00
Rick GrundyRick Grundy
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Turns out there’s no good way of doing this. The closest I came is adding «overflow:hidden;» to the div around the table and losing the text.
The real solution seems to be to ditch table though. Using divs and relative positioning I was able to achieve the same effect, minus the legacy of <table>
2015 UPDATE: This is for those like me who want this answer. After 6 years, this works, thanks to all the contributors.
* { /* this works for all but td */
word-wrap:break-word;
}
table { /* this somehow makes it work for td */
table-layout:fixed;
width:100%;
}
Nick Parsons
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answered Aug 12, 2009 at 0:08
psychotikpsychotik
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2
As mentioned, putting the text within div
almost works. You just have to specify the width
of the div
, which is fortunate for layouts which are static.
This works on FF 3.6, IE 8, Chrome.
<td>
<div style="width: 442px; word-wrap: break-word">
<!-- Long Content Here-->
</div>
</td>
Mark Amery
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answered Apr 10, 2011 at 5:14
loungerdorkloungerdork
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2
Workaround that uses overflow-wrap and works fine with normal table layout + table width 100%
https://jsfiddle.net/krf0v6pw/
HTML
<table>
<tr>
<td class="overflow-wrap-hack">
<div class="content">
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS
.content{
word-wrap:break-word; /*old browsers*/
overflow-wrap:break-word;
}
table{
width:100%; /*must be set (to any value)*/
}
.overflow-wrap-hack{
max-width:1px;
}
Benefits:
- Uses
overflow-wrap:break-word
instead ofword-break:break-all
. Which is better because it tries to break on spaces first, and cuts the word off only if the word is bigger than it’s container. - No
table-layout:fixed
needed. Use your regular auto-sizing. - Not needed to define fixed
width
or fixedmax-width
in pixels. Define%
of the parent if needed.
Tested in FF57, Chrome62, IE11, Safari11
answered Nov 23, 2017 at 11:39
SlavaSlava
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2
Problem with
<td style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</td>
is that it will work not so good when text has some spaces, e.g.
<td style="word-break:break-all;">long text with andthenlongerwithoutspaces</td>
If word andthenlongerwithoutspaces
fits into table cell in one line but long text with andthenlongerwithoutspaces
does not, the long word will be broken in two, instead of being wrapped.
Alternative solution: insert U+200B (ZWSP), U+00AD (soft hyphen)
or U+200C (ZWNJ) in every long word after every, say, 20th character (however, see warning below):
td {
border: 1px solid;
}
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
</div>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
Warning: inserting additional, zero-length characters does not affect reading. However, it does affect text copied into clipboard (these characters are of course copied as well). If the clipboard text is later used in some search function in the web app… search is going to be broken. Although this solution can be seen in some well known web applications, avoid if possible.
Warning: when inserting additional characters, you should not separate multiple code points within grapheme. See https://unicode.org/reports/tr29/#Grapheme_Cluster_Boundaries for more info.
answered Feb 3, 2011 at 9:57
Piotr FindeisenPiotr Findeisen
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3
Change your code
word-wrap: break-word;
to
word-break:break-all;
Example
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td>
<div style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspacelongtextwithoutspace Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content, Long Content</div>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Short Content</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Mark Amery
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answered Apr 12, 2016 at 2:39
Duc NguyenDuc Nguyen
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1
Check out this demo
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td><div style="word-break:break-all;">LongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWord</div>
</td>
<td>
<span style="display: inline;">Foo</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Here is the link to read
Rishab
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answered Aug 12, 2011 at 6:21
AabinGunzAabinGunz
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1
Tested in IE 8 and Chrome 13.
<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
<tr>
<td>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
longtexthere
</div>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
This causes the table to fit the width of the page and each column to take up 50% of the width.
If you prefer the first column to take up more of the page, add a width: 80%
to the td
as in the following example, replacing 80% with the percentage of your choice.
<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
<tr>
<td style="width:80%">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
longtexthere
</div>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
Mark Amery
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answered Aug 15, 2011 at 20:23
Waylon FlinnWaylon Flinn
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The only thing that needs to be done is add width to the <td>
or the <div>
inside the <td>
depending on the layout you want to achieve.
eg:
<table style="width: 100%;" border="1"><tr>
<td><div style="word-wrap: break-word; width: 100px;">looooooooooodasdsdaasdasdasddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddasdasdasdsadng word</div></td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr></table>
or
<table style="width: 100%;" border="1"><tr>
<td width="100" ><div style="word-wrap: break-word; ">looooooooooodasdsdaasdasdasddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddasdasdasdsadng word</div></td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr></table>
Mark Amery
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answered Aug 16, 2011 at 8:24
Shalom SamShalom Sam
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1
It appears you need to set word-wrap:break-word;
on a block element (div
), with specified (non relative) width. Ex:
<table style="width: 100%;"><tr>
<td><div style="display:block; word-wrap: break-word; width: 40em;">loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word</div></td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr></table>
or using word-break:break-all
per Abhishek Simon’s suggestion.
Mark Amery
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answered Aug 24, 2011 at 5:51
stslavikstslavik
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0
The answer that won the bounty is correct, but it doesn’t work if the first row of the table has a merged/joined cell (all the cells get equal width).
In this case you should use the colgroup
and col
tags to display it properly:
<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 200px">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 30%;">
<col style="width: 70%;">
</colgroup>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">Merged cell</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="word-wrap: break-word">VeryLongWordInThisCell</td>
<td style="word-wrap: break-word">Cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>
answered Jan 11, 2013 at 7:15
IndrekIndrek
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0
<p style="overflow:hidden; width:200px; word-wrap:break-word;">longtexthere<p>
Cody Guldner
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answered Jun 1, 2011 at 9:44
1
i tried all but in my case just work for me
white-space: pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;
answered Sep 6, 2020 at 10:34
BalajiBalaji
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I ran into a similar problem. I had a table inside a Bootstrap modal in an AngularJS application. When I changed the filter on the table and long values appeared in the cell in question, the text would overflow outside the cell, and outside the modal. This CSS ended up fixing the problem, applied to the TD:
style="white-space:pre-wrap; word-break:break-word"
That made the values wrap properly even across changes to the table content.
answered Jan 21, 2022 at 13:40
TFR3TFR3
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0
This works for me:
<style type="text/css">
td {
/* CSS 3 */
white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;
white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
white-space: -pre-wrap;
}
And table attribute is:
table {
table-layout: fixed;
width: 100%
}
</style>
answered May 20, 2014 at 13:22
Lavekush AgrawalLavekush Agrawal
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1
If you do not need a table border, apply this:
table{
table-layout:fixed;
border-collapse:collapse;
}
td{
word-wrap: break-word;
}
answered Dec 11, 2015 at 13:43
FusionFusion
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1
Common confusing issue here is that we have 2 different css properties: word-wrap
and word-break
.
Then on top of that, word-wrap has an option called break-word
.. Easy to mix-up
Usually this worked for me, even inside a table:
word-break: break-word;
answered Sep 7, 2020 at 5:25
eyal_katzeyal_katz
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0
this might help,
css
.wrap-me{
word-break: break-all !important;
}
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>Col 1</td>
<td>Col 2</td>
<td>Col 3</td>
<td>Col 4</td>
<td>Col 5</td>
<td>Col 6</td>
<td>Col 7</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr> <td class="wrap-me">tesetonlywithoutspacetesetonlywithoutspacetesetonlywithoutspace</td>
<td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
<td class="wrap-me">test with space long text</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 4</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 5</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 6</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
<td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
<td class="wrap-me">test with space long text</td>
<td class="wrap-me">testwithoutspacetestonlylongtext</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 5</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 6</td>
<td class="wrap-me">Col 7</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
answered Jun 29, 2021 at 13:42
I found a solution that seems to work in Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 7-9. For doing a two-column table layout with long text on the one side. I searched all over for similar problem, and what worked in one browser broke the other, or adding more tags to a table just seems like bad coding.
I did NOT use a table for this. DL DT DD to the rescue. At least for fixing a two-column layout, that is basically a glossary/dictionary/word-meaning setup.
And some generic styling.
dl {
margin-bottom:50px;
}
dl dt {
background:#ccc;
color:#fff;
float:left;
font-weight:bold;
margin-right:10px;
padding:5px;
width:100px;
}
dl dd {
margin:2px 0;
padding:5px 0;
word-wrap:break-word;
margin-left:120px;
}
<dl>
<dt>test1</dt>
<dd>Fusce ultricies mi nec orci tempor sit amet</dd>
<dt>test2</dt>
<dd>Fusce ultricies</dd>
<dt>longest</dt>
<dd>
Loremipsumdolorsitametconsecteturadipingemipsumdolorsitametconsecteturaelit.Nulla
laoreet ante et turpis vulputate condimentum. In in elit nisl. Fusce ultricies
mi nec orci tempor sit amet luctus dui convallis. Fusce viverra rutrum ipsum,
in sagittis eros elementum eget. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora
torquent per conubia nostra, per.
</dd>
</dl>
Using floating word-wrap and margin left, I got exactly what I needed. Just thought I’d share this with others, maybe it will help someone else with a two-column definition style layout, with trouble getting the words to wrap.
I tried using word-wrap in the table cell, but it only worked in Internet Explorer 9, (and Firefox and Google Chrome of course) mainly trying to fix the broken Internet Explorer browser here.
Rishab
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answered Feb 3, 2012 at 15:35
Yogurt The WiseYogurt The Wise
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i have same issue this work fine for me
<style>
td{
word-break: break-word;
}
</style>
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td>Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
answered Jul 31, 2020 at 14:01
DarkcoderDarkcoder
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1
Tables wrap by default, so make sure the display of the table cells are table-cell
:
td {
display: table-cell;
}
answered Aug 11, 2009 at 4:10
ironsamironsam
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2
style=»table-layout:fixed; width:98%; word-wrap:break-word»
<table bgcolor="white" id="dis" style="table-layout:fixed; width:98%; word-wrap:break-word" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" bordercolordark="white" bordercolorlight="white" >
Demo — http://jsfiddle.net/Ne4BR/749/
This worked great for me. I had long links that would cause the table to exceed 100% on web browsers.
Tested on IE, Chrome, Android and Safari.
Mark Amery
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answered Oct 1, 2014 at 18:37
BobbyBobby
455 bronze badges
1
A solution which work with Google Chrome and Firefox (not tested with Internet Explorer) is to set display: table-cell
as a block element.
answered Oct 10, 2011 at 12:53
Antoine GuiralAntoine Guiral
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You can try this if it suits you…
Put a textarea inside your td and disable it with background color white and define its number of rows.
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td>
<textarea rows="4" style="background-color:white;border: none;" disabled> Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
</textarea>
</td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
</tr>
</table>
answered Jan 29, 2020 at 6:21
Adarsh SinghAdarsh Singh
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Just add width. This worked for me.
<td style="width:10%;"><strong>Item Name</strong></td>
answered Aug 18, 2020 at 9:06
If you only care about text, you can do it without table-layout:fixed
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Title
</td>
<td>
Length
</td>
<td>
Action
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Long song name
</td>
<td>
3:11
</td>
<td>
<button>
Buy Now!
</button>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan=3>
<div style='width:200px;background-color:lime;margin-left:20px'>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>quick </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>brown </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>foxed </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>jumped </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>over </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>lazy </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>brown </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>cat </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
<div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Long song name1
</td>
<td>
2:20
</td>
<td>
<button>
Buy Now!
</button>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
answered May 11, 2021 at 21:35
patrickpatrick
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In my case, i had to use a combination of both word break and white space pre-wrap to achieve best results. Hope it helps many more.
<td class="wrap-longtext">
long,longlonglonglonglonglonglong..................
</td>
<style>
.wrap-longtext
{
word-break: break-all;/* Use break-word, if you prefer sensible text than short width of the cell */
white-space: pre-wrap;
}
</style>
answered Dec 21, 2022 at 22:17
Riyaz HameedRiyaz Hameed
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It seems like you’re experiencing issues with word wrapping in table cells even when using the word-wrap: break-word; CSS property. One possible reason for this is that the table element has its own layout rules that may override the properties you’re setting on individual cells.
To fix this issue, you can try setting the table-layout property of the table element to fixed, which will force the table cells to have a fixed width and height, and allow word-wrap to work properly.
Here’s an updated version of your code with the table-layout property added:
<style>
td {
border: 1px solid;
}
table {
width: 100%;
table-layout: fixed; /* Add this line */
}
</style>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
</div>
</td>
<td>
<span style="display: inline;">Short word</span>
</td>
sorry if the code isnt very well indented
answered Apr 3 at 22:48
As we know, the contents of a table can change its structure or dimensions. So, there can be several difficulties with table cells. For example, long words in a table cell may cause the cell width to increase, or long words may cross the cell borders. But you can avoid these by using word wrapping on the cell content.
In this snippet, we suggest two methods: either using the CSS word-wrap or word-break property.
Use the border-collapse property set to «collapse» and table-layout property set to «fixed» on the <table> element. Also, specify the width of the table. Then, set the word-wrap property to its «break-word» value for <td> elements and add border and width to them.
Example of wrapping the content of a table cell with the word-wrap property:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of the document</title>
<style>
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 310px;
}
table td {
border: solid 1px #666;
width: 110px;
word-wrap: break-word;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>What is Lorem Ipsum?</td>
<td>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>Why do we use it?</td>
<td>It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
If you want to wrap a word on a new line, use the word-wrap property, but if you need to break it at any appropriate character, use the word-break property.
Here, we set the margin-left and margin-right properties to «auto» for the <table>, use the «fixed» value of the table-layout property and specify the border-spacing and width of the table. For <td> elements, add the border property and set the word-break to its «break-all» value.
Example of wrapping the content of a table cell with the word-break property:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Title of the document</title>
<style>
table {
border-spacing: 0px;
table-layout: fixed;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: 310px;
}
td {
border: 1px solid #666;
word-break: break-all;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>What is Lorem Ipsum?</td>
<td>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>Why do we use it?</td>
<td>It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
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Tables in HTML are absurd elements. It is not an easy task to apply CSS properties to a table element. Being a highly structured element, CSS properties are sometimes lost in the hierarchy down the structure. It is also very likely that the contents of the table might change the structure or dimensions of the table. For example, long words residing in the table cells can cause the cell width to increases. If you fix that problem, it might happen that the long words cross the cell boundaries. We can avoid this by performing word wrap on the cell data.
There are two methods to wrap table cell <td> content using CSS which are given below:
- Using word-wrap property: This property is used to allow long words to break and wrap onto the next line.
- Using word-break property: This property is used to specify how to break the word when the word reached at end of the line. The line breaks in the text can occur in certain spaces, like when there is a space or a hyphen.
Example:
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<
html
>
<
head
>
<
title
>
How to wrap table cell
td content using CSS?
</
title
>
<
style
>
h1, h3 {
text-align: center;
}
table {
border-spacing: 0px;
table-layout: fixed;
margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto;
}
th {
color: green;
border: 1px solid black;
}
td {
border: 1px solid black;
}
</
style
>
</
head
>
<
body
>
<
h1
style
=
"color:green;"
>GeeksforGeeks</
h1
>
<
h3
>Simple Example Without Word Wrap</
h3
>
<
table
width
=
"600"
>
<
tr
>
<
th
>Course Name</
th
>
<
th
>Specifications</
th
>
<
th
>Duration</
th
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>Data Structures and Algorithms</
td
>
<
td
>
It includes pre-recorded premium
<
span
style
=
"color: red;"
>
Videolectures&programmingquestions
</
span
> for practice.
</
td
>
<
td
>4 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>GFG Placement Programme</
td
>
<
td
>
This course helps students to prepare
for the Recruitment drive.
</
td
>
<
td
>3 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
</
table
>
</
body
>
</
html
>
Output:
Note: In the above table, we have defined a table width of 600px and applied table-layout as fixed. Observe that a long word, which is marked red, is made by removing the spaces, for example purpose.
Method 1: Using word-wrap property: The word-wrap: break-word; property is used to break the long word at an appropriate break point.
Example:
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<
html
>
<
head
>
<
title
>
How to wrap table cell
td content using CSS?
</
title
>
<
style
>
h1,
h3 {
text-align: center;
}
table {
border-spacing: 0px;
table-layout: fixed;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
th {
color: green;
border: 1px solid black;
}
td {
border: 1px solid black;
word-wrap: break-word;
}
</
style
>
</
head
>
<
body
>
<
h1
style
=
"color:green;"
>GeeksforGeeks</
h1
>
<
h3
>Wrap Table Cell td Content using word-wrap property</
h3
>
<
table
width
=
"600"
>
<
tr
>
<
th
>Course Name</
th
>
<
th
>Specifications</
th
>
<
th
>Duration</
th
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>Data Structures and Algorithms</
td
>
<
td
>
It includes pre-recorded premium
<
span
style
=
"color: red;"
>
Videolectures&programmingquestions
</
span
> for practice.
</
td
>
<
td
>4 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>GFG Placement Programme</
td
>
<
td
>
This course helps students to prepare
for the Recruitment drive.
</
td
>
<
td
>3 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
</
table
>
</
body
>
</
html
>
Output:
Method 2: Using word-break property: The word-break: break-all; property is used to break the word at any character.
Example:
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<
html
>
<
head
>
<
title
>
How to wrap table cell
td content using CSS?
</
title
>
<
style
>
h1,
h3 {
text-align: center;
}
table {
border-spacing: 0px;
table-layout: fixed;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
th {
color: green;
border: 1px solid black;
}
td {
border: 1px solid black;
word-break: break-all;
}
</
style
>
</
head
>
<
body
>
<
h1
style
=
"color:green;"
>GeeksforGeeks</
h1
>
<
h3
>Wrap Table Cell td Content using word-break property</
h3
>
<
table
width
=
"600"
>
<
tr
>
<
th
>Course Name</
th
>
<
th
>Specifications</
th
>
<
th
>Duration</
th
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>Data Structures and Algorithms</
td
>
<
td
>
It includes pre-recorded premium
<
span
style
=
"color: red;"
>
Videolectures&programmingquestions
</
span
> for practice.
</
td
>
<
td
>4 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
<
tr
>
<
td
>GFG Placement Programme</
td
>
<
td
>
This course helps students to prepare
for the Recruitment drive.
</
td
>
<
td
>3 months</
td
>
</
tr
>
</
table
>
</
body
>
</
html
>
Output:
Note: Please note the difference between the outcome of both the properties. The word-wrap property wraps the word on a new line while word-break property continues to follow the flow and breaks at any appropriate character.
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If you’re reading this you’re either curious or you’ve got serious issue trying to handle long words in a table cell. As I had. So, here is a full review of my investigations to save you some time.
Following solutions work on both HTML and CSS tables, and are supported by modern browsers and IE8+.
- [#] Breaking words with word-wrap and max-width
- [#] Breaking words with word-wrap and table-layout
- [#] Breaking words with word-break
- [#] Make breaks more elegant using CSS hyphens
Breaking words with word-wrap
and max-width
word-wrap
prevents a long word from overflowing its container by breaking the text onto the next line. It works fine when applied on a block element (such as a <div>
or a <p>
), but has no effect within a table.
To get word-wrap
working on a table cell, max-width: 1px
is the magic fix you need:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris lobortis dui. Duis tempor ligula scelerisque sodales faucibus. Quisque sodales leo nec. | Loremipsumdolorsitametconsectetur |
<table>
<tr>
<td style="width:75%">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [...]
</td>
<td class="cell-breakWord">
Loremipsumdolorsitametconsectetur
</td>
</tr>
</table>
table {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
.cell-breakWord {
word-wrap: break-word;
max-width: 1px;
}
Note this max-width
trick also works to make an ellipsis within a table.
Should I use word-wrap
or overflow-wrap
?
word-wrap
is the historic and nonstandard property. It has been renamed to overflow-wrap
but remains an alias browers must support in future. Many browsers (especially the old ones) don’t support overflow-wrap
and require word-wrap
as a fallback (which is supported by all).
If you want to please the W3C you should consider associate both in your CSS. If you don’t, using word-wrap
alone is just fine.
Breaking words with word-wrap
and table-layout
Associate word-wrap
and table-layout: fixed
works to break long words in a table cell, but this solution has some constraints you should consider carefully.
By using table-layout
with fixed
value you change the algorithm used to lay out table cells, rows, and columns:
- In Firefox, paddings and borders are not taken into account in the calculation of the column widths. That means columns won’t size exactly the way you defined them.
- In all browsers, if no width has been defined, columns will all get the same size which is maybe not what you want.
** Not 75% in Firefox ** Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris lobortis dui. | Loremipsumdolorsitamet |
<table>
<tr>
<td style="width:75%">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [...]
</td>
<td class="cell-breakWord">
Loremipsumdolorsitamet
</td>
</tr>
</table>
table {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
table-layout: fixed;
}
.cell-breakWord {
word-wrap: break-word;
}
Breaking words with word-break
word-break
specifies how words should be broken when reaching the end of the line.
Used with the break-all
value, browsers will insert line break between any two characters, while word-wrap
will only create a break if the word can’t stand on its own line.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris lobortis dui. Duis tempor ligula scelerisque sodales faucibus. | Lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum |
<table>
<tr>
<td style="width:75%">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [...]
</td>
<td class="cell-breakAll">
Lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum
</td>
</tr>
</table>
table {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
.cell-breakAll {
word-break: break-all;
}
Make breaks more elegant using CSS hyphens
hyphens
property allows text to be hyphenated when words are too long to fit in one line. Hyphenation opportunities depend on the language of your content.
Native support is not that good at the moment. Worst thing is hyphens
is not working at all in Windows Chrome (it does work on Android and Mac OS plateforms). Proprietary prefixes and one of the word-wrap
fix (max-width
or table-layout
) as a complement are necessary to make this solution viable.
Since hyphenation rules are language-specific, you also need the lang
attribute to be defined on a parent element (mostly on the <html>
tag).
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris lobortis dui. Duis tempor ligula scelerisque sodales faucibus. Quisque sodales leo nec. | loremipsumdolorsitametconsectetur |
<html lang="en">
<head></head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td style="width:75%">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet [...]
</td>
<td class="cell-hyphens">
loremipsumdolorsitametconsectetur
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
table {
width: 100%;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
.cell-hyphens {
word-wrap: break-word;
max-width: 1px;
-webkit-hyphens: auto; /* iOS 4.2+ */
-moz-hyphens: auto; /* Firefox 5+ */
-ms-hyphens: auto; /* IE 10+ */
hyphens: auto;
}
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
, andword-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
andoverflow-wrap
CSS propertiesNormal
Anywhere
Break-word
- Implementing the
Word-break
CSS property- Setting
word-break
toNormal
- The
Break-all
value - Using the
Keep-all
value
- Setting
- What is the difference between
overflow-wrap
andword-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:
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
:
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
:
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:
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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