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It seems that text-overflow: ellipsis is dependent on white-space: nowrap. The problem with this is that it limits the text to one line. However, what if I need to have 4 lines, and the ellipsis on the last line in the case of overflow?

What it's currently doing...

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet ...

What I want...

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, 
consectetur adipisicing el-
it, sed do eiusmod tempor  
incididunt ut labore et ...
T. Stone
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  • possible duplicate of [Is it possible to use text-overflow:ellipsis without the white-space:nowrap rule?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6572330/is-it-possible-to-use-text-overflowellipsis-without-the-white-spacenowrap-rule) – BoltClock Nov 09 '11 at 17:21

1 Answers1

9

Unfortunately the behavior you are seeing is correct for text-overflow: ellipsis.

Cross-browser support for hyphenated text is not a reality yet with CSS only, but you can see a good roundup of what's possible here: http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/wiki/en_CSS3Hyphenation

Some browser-specific CSS is available for firefox and webkit browsers:

-webkit-hyphens: auto;
-webkit-hyphenate-character: '~';
-moz-hyphens: auto;

The big issue with hyphenation is that it needs to be language aware to work properly, which is tricky.

Maybe a JS solution like this will help you? http://code.google.com/p/hyphenator/

squarecandy
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