I'm looking to prevent a line break after a hyphen - on a case-by-case basis that is compatible with all browsers.

Example:

I have this text: 3-3/8" which in HTML is this: 3-3/8”

The problem is that near the end of a line, because of the hyphen, it breaks and wraps to the next line instead of treating it like a full word...

3-
3/8"

I've tried inserting the "zero width no break character",  with no luck...

3-3/8”

I'm seeing this in Safari and thinking it will be the same in all browsers.

The following is my doctype and character encoding...

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />

Is there any way I can prevent these from line-breaking after the hyphen? I do not need any solution that applies to the whole page... just something I can insert as needed, like a "zero width no break character", except one that works.

Here is a Demo. Simply make the frame narrower until the line breaks at the hyphen.

http://jsfiddle.net/RagKH/


Solution 1:

Try using the non-breaking hyphen &#8209;. I've replaced the dash with that character in your jsfiddle, shrunk the frame down as small as it can go, and the line doesn't split there any more.

Solution 2:

You could also wrap the relevant text with

<span style="white-space: nowrap;"></span>

Solution 3:

IE8/9 render the non-breaking hyphen mentioned in CanSpice's answer longer than a typical hyphen. It is the length of an en-dash instead of a typical hyphen. This display difference was a deal breaker for me.

As I could not use the CSS answer specified by Deb I instead opted to use no break tags.

<nobr>e-mail</nobr>

In addition I found a specific scenario that caused IE8/9 to break on a hyphen.

  • A string contains words separated by non-breaking spaces - &nbsp;
  • Width is limited
  • Contains a dash

IE renders it like this.

Example of hyphen breaking in IE8/9

The following code reproduces the problem pictured above. I had to use a meta tag to force rendering to IE9 as IE10 has fixed the issue. No fiddle because it does not support meta tags.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9" />
        <meta charset="utf-8"/>
        <style>
            body { padding: 20px; }
            div { width: 300px; border: 1px solid gray; }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>      
            <p>If&nbsp;there&nbsp;is&nbsp;a&nbsp;-&nbsp;and&nbsp;words&nbsp;are&nbsp;separated&nbsp;by&nbsp;the&nbsp;whitespace&nbsp;code&nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&nbsp;then&nbsp;IE&nbsp;will&nbsp;wrap&nbsp;on&nbsp;the&nbsp;dash.</p>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

Solution 4:

You can also do it "the joiner way" by inserting "U+2060 Word Joiner".

If Accept-Charset permits, the unicode character itself can be inserted directly into the HTML output.

Otherwise, it can be done using entity encoding. E.g. to join the text red-brown, use:

red-&#x2060;brown

or (decimal equivalent):

red-&#8288;brown

. Another usable character is "U+FEFF Zero Width No-break Space"[⁠&hairsp;⁠1&hairsp;]:

red-&#xfeff;brown

and (decimal equivalent):

red-&#65279;brown

[1]: Note that while this method still works in major browsers like Chrome, it has been deprecated since Unicode 3.2.


Comparison of "the joiner way" with "U+2011 Non-breaking Hyphen":

  • The word joiner can be used for all other characters, not just hyphens.

  • When using the word joiner, most renderers will rasterize the text identically. On Chrome, FireFox, IE, and Opera, the rendering of normal hyphens, eg:

    a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z

    is identical to the rendering of normal hyphens (with U+2060 Word Joiner), eg:

    a-⁠b-⁠c-⁠d-⁠e-⁠f-⁠g-⁠h-⁠i-⁠j-⁠k-⁠l-⁠m-⁠n-⁠o-⁠p-⁠q-⁠r-⁠s-⁠t-⁠u-⁠v-⁠w-⁠x-⁠y-⁠z

    while the above two renders differ from the rendering of "Non-breaking Hyphen", eg:

    a‑b‑c‑d‑e‑f‑g‑h‑i‑j‑k‑l‑m‑n‑o‑p‑q‑r‑s‑t‑u‑v‑w‑x‑y‑z

    . (The extent of the difference is browser-dependent and font-dependent. E.g. when using a font declaration of "arial", Firefox and IE11 show relatively huge variations, while Chrome and Opera show smaller variations.)

Comparison of "the joiner way" with <span class=c1></span> (CSS .c1 {white-space:nowrap;}) and <nobr></nobr>:

  • The word joiner can be used for situations where usage of HTML tags is restricted, e.g. forms of websites and forums.

  • On the spectrum of presentation and content, majority will consider the word joiner to be closer to content, when compared to tags.


• As tested on Windows 8.1 Core 64-bit using:
    • IE 11.0.9600.18205
    • Firefox 43.0.4
    • Chrome 48.0.2564.109 (Official Build) m (32-bit)
    • Opera 35.0.2066.92