How Can You Achieve Cross-Browser Word Wrapping with CSS and JavaScript?

Cross-Browser Word Wrapping in CSS and JavaScript

In this digital era, handling long, unbroken blocks of text within defined-width elements is a common challenge. This issue is especially prominent in web development, where preserving the readability of URLs and other long sequences is crucial.

Traditionally, developers have relied on various techniques to address this issue, each with its own set of drawbacks:

• overflow: hidden / auto / scroll: Hides excess text, but fails to display it without scrolling.
• Injecting ­: Supports text wrapping in Firefox, but breaks when copied and pasted in Safari.
• Measuring text width: Impractical due to the expensive DOM insertions required for precise measurements.
• Monospace fonts: Zooming can distort text and limit styling options.

However, a promising solution has emerged that meets the cross-browser requirement:

CSS white-space: pre-wrap

This CSS property allows long text to wrap within its container without adding unnecessary characters or invalidating HTML. It is supported by:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Opera
• Internet Explorer 5.5

Usage:

.wordwrap {
  white-space: pre-wrap;
}

This simple implementation will enable word wrapping for any element with the "wordwrap" class.

Note:

For cases where word wrapping is undesirable, the "no_wordwrap" class can be used:

.no_wordwrap {
  word-wrap: normal;
}

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