hyphens

Summary

The hyphens CSS property tells the browser how to go about splitting words to improve the layout of text when line-wrapping. On HTML, the language is determined by the lang attribute: browsers will hyphenate only if this attribute is present and if an appropriate hyphenation dictionary is available. On XML, the xml:lang attribute must be used.

• Initial value manual
• Applies to all elements
• Inherited yes
• Media visual
• Computed value as specified
• Animatable no
• Canonical order the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

Formal syntax: none | manual | auto

hyphens: none
hyphens: manual
hyphens: auto

hyphens: inherit

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 for details.

auto

The browser is free to automatically break words at appropriate hyphenation points, following whatever rules it chooses to use. Suggested line break opportunities, as covered in Suggesting line break opportunities, should be preferred over automatically selecting break points whenever possible.

Suggesting line break opportunities

There are two Unicode character 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 suggests a place where the browser might choose to break the word if necessary. In HTML, you can use ­ to insert a soft hyphen.

Example

This CSS snippet creates three classes, one for each possible configuration of the hyphens property.

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

p { 
  width: 55px;
  border: 1px solid black;
 }
p#none {
  -moz-hyphens: none;
  hyphens: none;
}
p#manual {
  -moz-hyphens: manual;
  hyphens: manual;
}
p#auto {
  -moz-hyphens: auto;
  hyphens: auto;
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Notes on supported languages

Various browsers supply hyphenation dictionaries for the following languages:

See also

• content