Breaking Words After Special Characters Like Hyphens in CSS
Have you ever faced an issue with long strings of text that exceed the width of their container? It becomes even more cumbersome when special characters, like hyphens, are involved. In this post, we will explore a solution that allows you to manage text wrapping effectively after hyphens, thereby enhancing user experience and readability.
Understanding the Problem
Let’s consider a basic CSS scenario:
div {
width: 150px;
}
And in your HTML, you have:
<div>
12333-2333-233-23339392-332332323
</div>
Here, the text inside the <div> exceeds the specified width of 150 pixels. This can lead to improper text display, making it hard for users to read the content. The challenge is to have the string wrap to a new line specifically at the hyphen (-) character.
The Solution: Using Soft Hyphens
To make this work, we can utilize a special character known as the soft hyphen. By replacing regular hyphens with a soft hyphen, we instruct the browser to break the line at those points when necessary.
How to Implement the Soft Hyphen
-
Replace Regular Hyphen with Soft Hyphen: Instead of using the hyphen (-), you’ll replace it with the HTML entity
­. This allows the browser to treat it as a potential breakpoint.The modified HTML will look like this:
<div> 12333­2333­233­23339392­332332323 </div> -
Resulting Output: When you do this, if the text needs to wrap due to the 150px width constraint, it will break neatly at the hyphen. The wrapped content will look more organized and visually appealing.
Complete Example
Here is the complete code snippet combining both the CSS and the modified HTML for better clarity:
div {
width: 150px;
}
<div>
12333­2333­233­23339392­332332323
</div>
Conclusion
By following the steps above, you can ensure that words will break appropriately at hyphens, resulting in a more user-friendly experience. The use of soft hyphens is a simple yet effective strategy that will make your text content much easier to read.
Feel free to implement this method in your next web design project — your users will appreciate the improved text layout!