CSS3 Text

CSS3 Text

CSS3 contains several new text features.

In this chapter you will learn about the following text properties:

• text-overflow
• word-wrap
• word-break

---

Browser Support

The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the property.

Numbers followed by -o- specify the first version that worked with a prefix. 

Property
text-overflow	6.0	4.0	7.0	3.1	11.0 9.0 -o-
word-wrap	5.5	23.0	3.5	6.1	12.1
word-break	5.5	4.0	15.0	3.1	15.0

---

CSS3 Text Overflow

The CSS3 text-overflow property specifies how overflowed content that is not displayed should be signaled to the user.

It can be clipped:

This is some long text that will not fit in the box

or it can be rendered as an ellipsis (...):

This is some long text that will not fit in the box

The CSS code is as follows:

p.test1 {
    white-space: nowrap; 
    width: 200px; 
    border: 1px solid #000000;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: clip; 
}

p.test2 {
    white-space: nowrap; 
    width: 200px; 
    border: 1px solid #000000;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis; 
}

The following example shows how you can display the overflowed content when hovering over the element:

div.test:hover {
    text-overflow: inherit;
    overflow: visible;
}

CSS3 Word Wrapping

The CSS3 word-wrap property allows long words to be able to be broken and wrap onto the next line. 

If a word is too long to fit within an area, it expands outside:

This paragraph contains a very long word: thisisaveryveryveryveryveryverylongword. The long word will break and wrap to the next line.

The word-wrap property allows you to force the text to wrap - even if it means splitting it in the middle of a word:

This paragraph contains a very long word: thisisaveryveryveryveryveryverylongword. The long word will break and wrap to the next line.

The CSS code is as follows:

p {
    word-wrap: break-word;
}

CSS3 Word Breaking

The CSS3 word-break property specifies line breaking rules.

This paragraph contains some text. This line will-break-at-hyphens.

This paragraph contains some text. The lines will break at any character.

The CSS code is as follows:

p.test1 {
    word-break: keep-all;
}

p.test2 {
    word-break: break-all;
}