How to wrap text of HTML button with fixed width?

Question

I just noticed that if you give an HTML button a fixed width, the text inside the button is never wrapped. I've tried it with word-wrap, but that cuts of the word even though there are spaces available to wrap on.

How can I make the text of an HTML button with a fixed width wrap like any tablecell would?

<td class="category_column">
  <input type="submit" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$DataList1$ctl12$ProCat_NameButton" value="Roos Sturingen / Sensors" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_DataList1_ctl12_ProCat_NameButton" class="outset" style="height:118px;width:200px;font-size:18px;color:#7F7F7F;width:200px;white-space:pre;"
  />
</td>

The CSS classes do nothing but adding borders and modify the padding. If I add word-wrap:break-word to this button, it will wrap it like this:

Roos Sturingen / Sen
sors

And I don't want it to cut of in the middle of a word if it is possible to cut it off between words.

score 673 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 24 '19 at 12:31

673

I found that you can make use of the white-space CSS property:

white-space: normal;

And it will break the words as normal text.

edited Apr 24 '19 at 12:31

double-beep

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answered Jul 28 '09 at 14:54

Siu

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@MGOwen it's ok now - we deadened IE6 in the meantime. – low_rents Nov 06 '17 at 10:44
3

The other answers suggesting `word-wrap: break-word;` didn't work for me, but this did. – F1Krazy Oct 11 '19 at 15:50

score 36 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '17 at 00:17

36

white-space: normal;
word-wrap: break-word;

Mine works with both

answered Aug 18 '17 at 00:17

Richard

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Brian Nixon · Answer 3 · 2010-05-01T19:42:03.480

8

You can force it (browser permitting, I imagine) by inserting line breaks in the HTML source, like this:

<INPUT value="Line 1
Line 2">

Of course working out where to place the line breaks is not necessarily trivial...

If you can use an HTML <BUTTON> instead of an <INPUT>, such that the button label is the element's content rather than its value attribute, placing that content inside a <SPAN> with a width attribute that is a few pixels narrower than that of the button seems to do the trick (even in IE6 :-).

edited May 01 '10 at 19:42

answered Apr 04 '10 at 14:36

Brian Nixon

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For something very simple you can also use – KevinH May 28 '10 at 11:41
Used to work, but no longer works in recent versions of Chrome. – Joe Mabel Feb 02 '17 at 17:53

Bhavani Raju · Answer 4 · 2018-06-13T11:08:29.963

7

   white-space: normal;
   word-wrap: break-word;

"Both" worked for me.

edited Jun 13 '18 at 11:08

answered Apr 17 '18 at 08:12

Bhavani Raju

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score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 12 '12 at 13:09

6

I have found that a button works, but that you'll want to add style="height: 100%;" to the button so that it will show more than the first line on Safari for iPhone iOS 5.1.1

edited Jul 12 '12 at 13:09

Druid

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answered Jul 11 '12 at 21:15

Nick Saemenes

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score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 22 '17 at 09:32

2

If we have some inner divisions inside <button> tag like this-

<button class="top-container">
    <div class="classA">
       <div class="classB">
           puts " some text to get print." 
       </div>
     </div>
     <div class="class1">
       <div class="class2">
           puts " some text to get print." 
       </div>
     </div>
</button>

Sometime Text of class A get overlap on class1 data because these both are in a single button tag. I try to break the tex using-

 word-wrap: break-word;         /* All browsers since IE 5.5+ */
 overflow-wrap: break-word;     /* Renamed property in CSS3 draft spec */

But this won't worked then I try this-

white-space: normal;

after removing above css properties and got my task done.

Hope will work for all !!!

answered Feb 22 '17 at 09:32

S.Yadav

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How does this differs from [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1194680/2441442) answer? – Christian Gollhardt Feb 22 '17 at 09:37
It is, if you notice, I have used that with button tag. – S.Yadav Feb 23 '17 at 06:54
Divs are not allowed within a button, it is not correct HTML. – Ian Devlin Sep 27 '18 at 15:02

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 14 '09 at 08:22

2

Multi-line buttons like that are not really trivial to implement. This page has an interesting (though somewhat dated) discussion on the subject. Your best bet would probably be to either drop the multi-line requirement or to create a custom button using e.g. divs and CSS, and adding some JavaScript to make it work as a button.

answered May 14 '09 at 08:22

Daan

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The problem is that I am using ASP.Net, using the asp:button control with CommandName and CommandArgument attributes. I can't just use an other control. – Peter May 14 '09 at 09:34

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 26 '16 at 19:34

1

word-wrap: break-word;

worked for me.

answered Nov 26 '16 at 19:34

Juubes

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O. V. · Answer 9 · 2023-03-23T18:01:18.893

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line-break: anywhere;

or

word-break: break-all;

also possible.

edited Mar 23 '23 at 18:01

answered Mar 23 '23 at 17:42

O. V.

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How to wrap text of HTML button with fixed width?

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