hyphens

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.

Note: In the above demo, the string "An extraordinarily long English word!" contains the hidden ­ (soft hyphen) character: An extra­ordinarily 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, hyphenate-character may be used to specify an alternative hyphenation character to use at the end of the line being broken.

Syntax

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

/* Global values */
hyphens: inherit;
hyphens: initial;
hyphens: revert;
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. 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.

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 ­ to insert a soft hyphen.

Note: When the HTML <wbr> element leads to a line break, no hyphen is added.

Formal definition

Initial valuemanual
Applies toall elements
Inheritedyes
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

none | manual | auto

Examples

Specifying text hyphenation

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

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

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

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Text Module Level 3
# hyphens-property

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
ChromeEdgeFirefoxInternet ExplorerOperaSafariWebView AndroidChrome AndroidFirefox for AndroidOpera AndroidSafari on iOSSamsung Internet
hyphens
Hyphenation dictionary for Afrikaans (af, af-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Bosnian, Serbian, and Serbo-Croatian (sh, sh-*, sr, sr-*, bs, bs-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Bulgarian (bg, bg-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Catalan (ca, ca-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Croatian (hr, hr-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Czech (cs, cs-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Danish (da, da-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Dutch (nl, nl-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for English (en, en-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Esperanto (eo, eo-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Estonian (et, et-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Finnish (fi, fi-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for French (fr, fr-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Galician (gl, gl-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for German, Reformed Orthography of 1996 (de, de-1996, de-DE, de-AT, de-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for German, Swiss Orthography (de-CH, de-CH-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for German, Traditional Orthography of 1901 (de-1901, de-AT-1901, de-DE-1901)
Hyphenation dictionary for Hungarian (hu, hu-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Icelandic (is, is-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Interlingua (ia, ia-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Italian (it, it-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Kurmanji (kmr, kmr-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Latin (la, la-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Lithuanian (lt, lt-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Mongolian (mn, mn-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Norwegian (Nynorsk) (nn, nn-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Norwegian (Bokmål) (no, no-*, nb, nb-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Polish (pl, pl-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Portuguese (pt, pt-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)
Hyphenation dictionary for Russian (ru, ru-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Slovenian (sl, sl-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Spanish (es, es-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Swedish (sv, sv-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Turkish (tr, tr-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Ukrainian (uk, uk-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Upper Sorbian (hsb, hsb-*)
Hyphenation dictionary for Welsh (cy, cy-*)

Legend

Full support
Full support
Partial support
Partial support
No support
No support
See implementation notes.
Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.

See also