How to Have Text-Overflow: Ellipsis Without White-Space: Nowrap

text-overflow ellipsis without white-space: nowrap?

There is no way to do this using pure CSS. It's monstrous and sad. I've often desired this myself when you want the browser to "ellipsify" a multi-line text with possibly overflowing text whenever it spills out of the container.

Is it possible to have text-overflow: ellipsis without white-space: nowrap?

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/

textwrap with ellipsis and nowrap white-space

Just use text-overflow: ellipsis along with white-space: nowrap.

Updated Example

.testWrap {
    width: 125px;
    white-space: nowrap;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

HTML ellipsis without specifying the particular width

Just add display: flex to the div container:

div {  display: flex; /* new */  width: 200px;  white-space: nowrap;  border: 1px solid red;  margin-top: 10px;}
span {  overflow: hidden;  text-overflow: ellipsis;}
b {  padding-left: 10px;}

<div>  <span>test</span>  <b>12345</b></div>
<div>  <span>test test test test test test test test test test test</span>  <b>50</b></div>

Text overflow ellipsis on two lines

I'm not sure if you have seen this article, but Chris Coyier's excellent CSS-Tricks.com posted a link to this a while back and it's a pure CSS solution that accomplishes exactly what you seek.

(Click to View on CodePen)

html,
body,
p {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

.ellipsis {
  overflow: hidden;
  height: 200px;
  line-height: 25px;
  margin: 20px;
  border: 5px solid #AAA;
}

.ellipsis:before {
  content: "";
  float: left;
  width: 5px;
  height: 200px;
}

.ellipsis>*:first-child {
  float: right;
  width: 100%;
  margin-left: -5px;
}

.ellipsis:after {
  content: "\02026";
  box-sizing: content-box;
  -webkit-box-sizing: content-box;
  -moz-box-sizing: content-box;
  float: right;
  position: relative;
  top: -25px;
  left: 100%;
  width: 3em;
  margin-left: -3em;
  padding-right: 5px;
  text-align: right;
  background-size: 100% 100%;
  /* 512x1 image,gradient for IE9. Transparent at 0% -> white at 50% -> white at 100%.*/
  background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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);
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right top, from(rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)), to(white), color-stop(50%, white));
  background: -moz-linear-gradient(to right, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0), white 50%, white);
  background: -o-linear-gradient(to right, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0), white 50%, white);
  background: -ms-linear-gradient(to right, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0), white 50%, white);
  background: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0), white 50%, white);
}

<div class="ellipsis">
  <div>
    <p>
      Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
      driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing
      up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off –
      then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
    </p>
  </div>
</div>

CSS text-overflow: ellipsis; not working?

text-overflow:ellipsis; only works when the following are true:

• The element's width must be constrained in px (pixels). Width in % (percentage) won't work.
• The element must have overflow:hidden and white-space:nowrap set.

The reason you're having problems here is because the width of your a element isn't constrained. You do have a width setting, but because the element is set to display:inline (i.e. the default) it is ignoring it, and nothing else is constraining its width either.

You can fix this by doing one of the following:

• Set the element to display:inline-block or display:block (probably the former, but depends on your layout needs).
• Set one of its container elements to display:block and give that element a fixed width or max-width.
• Set the element to float:left or float:right (probably the former, but again, either should have the same effect as far as the ellipsis is concerned).

I'd suggest display:inline-block, since this will have the minimum collateral impact on your layout; it works very much like the display:inline that it's using currently as far as the layout is concerned, but feel free to experiment with the other points as well; I've tried to give as much info as possible to help you understand how these things interact together; a large part of understanding CSS is about understanding how various styles work together.

Here's a snippet with your code, with a display:inline-block added, to show how close you were.

.app a {  height: 18px;  width: 140px;  padding: 0;  overflow: hidden;  position: relative;  display: inline-block;  margin: 0 5px 0 5px;  text-align: center;  text-decoration: none;  text-overflow: ellipsis;  white-space: nowrap;  color: #000;}

<div class="app">  <a href="">Test Test Test Test Test Test</a></div>

make middle span with ellipsis without breaking icon and right number

As long as you are using inline-flex, the 100% width should work perfectly for achieving what you need:

.text {
  width: 100%;
  padding-left: 5px;
}

.right {
  width: 10%; /* remove it */
}

.right {  float: right;  padding: 0 8px;}
.menu {  width: 155px;  border-right: 1px solid #ccc;  list-style-type: none;}
body {  font-family: "Segoe UI", "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;}a {  text-decoration: none}    .p {     width: 155px;
      white-space: nowrap;       overflow: hidden;      text-overflow: ellipsis;      display: inline-flex;    }      .text {        white-space: nowrap;         overflow: hidden;        text-overflow: ellipsis;        width: 100%;        padding-left: 5px;        padding-right: 16px;      }      .right {        /*width: 10%;*/      }

<link href="https://code.ionicframework.com/ionicons/2.0.1/css/ionicons.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/><ul class="menu"> <li class="" data-action="switchFolder" data-sign-in="false" id="inbox">  <a href="javascript:void(0);">            <div class="p">      <i class="icon ion-ios-filing-outline"></i>      <span class="text">This is a very long element that wil exceed limit</span>      <span class="right">429</span>            </div>  </a> </li> </ul>

text-overflow: ellipsis not working

You need to have CSS overflow, width (or max-width), display, and white-space.

http://jsfiddle.net/HerrSerker/kaJ3L/1/

span {
    border: solid 2px blue;
    white-space: nowrap;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    width: 100px;
    display: block;
    overflow: hidden
}

body {
    overflow: hidden;
}

span {
    border: solid 2px blue;
    white-space: nowrap;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    width: 100px;
    display: block;
    overflow: hidden
}

<span>Test test test test test test</span>

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