hyphens

The hyphens CSS property specifies how words should be hyphenated when text wraps across multiple lines. You can prevent hyphenation entirely, use hyphenation in manually-specified points within the text, or let the browser automatically insert hyphens where appropriate.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

Hyphenation rules are language-specific. In HTML, the language is determined by the lang attribute, and browsers will hyphenate only if this attribute is present and if an appropriate hyphenation dictionary is available. In XML, the xml:lang attribute must be used.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
hyphens: none;
hyphens: manual;
hyphens: auto;

/* Global values */
hyphens: inherit;
hyphens: initial;
hyphens: unset;

The hyphens property is specified as a single keyword value chosen from the list below.

Values

none

Words are not broken at line breaks, even if characters inside the words suggest line break points. Lines will only wrap at whitespace.

manual

Words are broken for line-wrapping only where characters inside the word suggest line break opportunities. See Suggesting line break opportunities below for details.

auto

The browser is free to automatically break words at appropriate hyphenation points, following whatever rules it chooses to use. However, suggested line break opportunities (see Suggesting line break opportunities below) will override automatic break point selection when present.

Formal syntax

none | manual | auto

Suggesting line break opportunities

There are two Unicode characters that can be used to manually specify potential line break points within text:

U+2010 (HYPHEN)

The "hard" hyphen character indicates a visible line break opportunity. Even if the line is not actually broken at that point, the hyphen is still rendered.

U+00AD (SHY)

An invisible, "soft" hyphen. This character is not rendered visibly; instead, it marks a place where the browser should break the word if hyphenation is necessary. In HTML, you can use ­ to insert a soft hyphen.

Example

This example uses three classes, one for each possible configuration of the hyphens property.

HTML

<ul>
  <li><code>none</code>: no hyphen; overflow if needed
    <p lang="en" class="none">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</p>
  </li>  
  <li><code>manual</code>: hyphen only at &amp;hyphen; or &amp;shy; (if needed)
    <p lang="en" class="manual">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</p>
  </li>
  <li><code>auto</code>: hyphen where the algorithm is deciding (if needed)
    <p lang="en" class="auto">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</p>
  </li>
</ul>

CSS

p { 
  width: 55px;
  border: 1px solid black;
 }
p.none {
  -webkit-hyphens: none;
  -ms-hyphens: none;
  hyphens: none;
}
p.manual {
  -webkit-hyphens: manual;
  -ms-hyphens: manual;
  hyphens: manual;
}
p.auto {
  -webkit-hyphens: auto;
  -ms-hyphens: auto;
  hyphens: auto;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• content