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hyphens

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

{{InteractiveExample("CSS Demo: hyphens")}}

css
hyphens: none;
css
hyphens: manual;
css
hyphens: auto;
html
<section id="default-example">
  <p id="example-element">An extra­ordinarily long English word!</p>
</section>
css
#example-element {
  border: 2px dashed #999999;
  font-size: 1.5rem;
  text-align: left;
  width: 7rem;
}

[!NOTE] In the above demo, the string "An extraordinarily long English word!" contains the hidden &shy; (soft hyphen) character: An extra&shy;ordinarily long English word!. This character is used to indicate a potential place to insert a hyphen when hyphens: manual; is specified.

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 the appropriate hyphenation dictionary is available. In XML, the xml:lang attribute must be used.

[!NOTE] The rules defining how hyphenation is performed are not explicitly defined by the specification, so the exact hyphenation may vary from browser to browser.

If supported, {{cssxref("hyphenate-character")}} may be used to specify an alternative hyphenation character to use at the end of the line being broken.

Syntax

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

/* Global values */
hyphens: inherit;
hyphens: initial;
hyphens: revert;
hyphens: revert-layer;
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
    • : Default value. 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. However, suggested line break opportunities (see Suggesting line break opportunities below) will override automatic break point selection when present.

[!NOTE] The auto setting's behavior depends on the language being properly tagged to select the appropriate hyphenation rules. You must specify a language using the lang HTML attribute to guarantee that automatic hyphenation is applied in that language.

[!NOTE] If you apply word-break: break-all then no hyphens are shown, even if the word breaks at a hyphenation point.

Suggesting line break opportunities

There are two Unicode characters 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, use &shy; to insert a soft hyphen.

[!NOTE] When the HTML <wbr> element leads to a line break, no hyphen is added.

Formal definition

{{cssinfo}}

Formal syntax

{{csssyntax}}

Examples

Specifying text hyphenation

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

HTML

html
<dl>
  <dt><code>none</code>: no hyphen; overflow if needed</dt>
  <dd lang="en" class="none">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</dd>
  <dt>
    <code>manual</code>: hyphen only at &amp;hyphen; or &amp;shy; (if needed)
  </dt>
  <dd lang="en" class="manual">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</dd>
  <dt><code>auto</code>: hyphens where the algorithm decides (if needed)</dt>
  <dd lang="en" class="auto">An extreme&shy;ly long English word</dd>
</dl>

CSS

css
dd {
  width: 55px;
  border: 1px solid black;
}
dd.none {
  hyphens: none;
}
dd.manual {
  hyphens: manual;
}
dd.auto {
  hyphens: auto;
}

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("Specifying_text_hyphenation", "100%", 490)}}

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also