Word-wrap in an HTML table

I've been using word-wrap: break-word to wrap text in divs and spans. However, it doesn't seem to work in table cells. I have a table set to width:100%, with one row and two columns. Text in columns, although styled with the above word-wrap, doesn't wrap. It causes the text to go past the bounds of the cell. This happens on Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Here's what the source looks like:

td {
  border: 1px solid;
}

<table style="width: 100%;">
  <tr>
    <td>
      <div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
        Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
      </div>
    </td>
    <td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
  </tr>
</table>

The long word above is larger than the bounds of my page, but it doesn't break with the above HTML. I've tried the suggestions below of adding text-wrap:suppress and text-wrap:normal, but neither helped.

The following works for me in Internet Explorer. Note the addition of the table-layout:fixed CSS attribute

td {
  border: 1px solid;
}

<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
  <tr>
    <td style="word-wrap: break-word">
      LongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongLongWord
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

<td style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</td>

or

<span style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</span>

A long shot, but double-check with Firebug (or similar) that you aren't accidentally inheriting the following rule:

white-space:nowrap;

This may override your specified line break behaviour.

Turns out there's no good way of doing this. The closest I came is adding "overflow:hidden;" to the div around the table and losing the text. The real solution seems to be to ditch table though. Using divs and relative positioning I was able to achieve the same effect, minus the legacy of <table>

2015 UPDATE: This is for those like me who want this answer. After 6 years, this works, thanks to all the contributors.

* { /* this works for all but td */
  word-wrap:break-word;
}

table { /* this somehow makes it work for td */
  table-layout:fixed;
  width:100%;
}

As mentioned, putting the text within div almost works. You just have to specify the width of the div, which is fortunate for layouts which are static.

This works on FF 3.6, IE 8, Chrome.

<td>
  <div style="width: 442px; word-wrap: break-word">
    <!-- Long Content Here-->
  </div>
</td>

Workaround that uses overflow-wrap and works fine with normal table layout + table width 100%

https://jsfiddle.net/krf0v6pw/

HTML

<table>
  <tr>
    <td class="overflow-wrap-hack">
      <div class="content">
        wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
      </div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

CSS

.content{
  word-wrap:break-word; /*old browsers*/
  overflow-wrap:break-word;
}

table{
  width:100%; /*must be set (to any value)*/
}

.overflow-wrap-hack{
  max-width:1px;
}

Benefits:

• Uses overflow-wrap:break-word instead of word-break:break-all. Which is better because it tries to break on spaces first, and cuts the word off only if the word is bigger than it's container.
• No table-layout:fixed needed. Use your regular auto-sizing.
• Not needed to define fixed width or fixed max-width in pixels. Define % of the parent if needed.

Tested in FF57, Chrome62, IE11, Safari11

Problem with

<td style="word-break:break-all;">longtextwithoutspace</td>

is that it will work not so good when text has some spaces, e.g.

<td style="word-break:break-all;">long text with andthenlongerwithoutspaces</td>

If word andthenlongerwithoutspaces fits into table cell in one line but long text with andthenlongerwithoutspaces does not, the long word will be broken in two, instead of being wrapped.

Alternative solution: insert U+200B (ZWSP), U+00AD (soft hyphen) or U+200C (ZWNJ) in every long word after every, say, 20th character (however, see warning below):

td {
  border: 1px solid;
}

<table style="width: 100%;">
  <tr>
    <td>
      <div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
        Looooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooooooooo&#xAD;oooooooooooooong word
      </div>
    </td>
    <td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
  </tr>
</table>

Warning: inserting additional, zero-length characters does not affect reading. However, it does affect text copied into clipboard (these characters are of course copied as well). If the clipboard text is later used in some search function in the web app... search is going to be broken. Although this solution can be seen in some well known web applications, avoid if possible.

Warning: when inserting additional characters, you should not separate multiple code points within grapheme. See https://unicode.org/reports/tr29/#Grapheme_Cluster_Boundaries for more info.

Change your code

word-wrap: break-word;

to

word-break:break-all;

Example

Check out this demo

   <table style="width: 100%;">
    <tr>
        <td><div style="word-break:break-all;">LongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWordLongWord</div>
        </td>
        <td>
            <span style="display: inline;">Foo</span>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Here is the link to read

Tested in IE 8 and Chrome 13.

<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
	<tr>
		<td>
              <div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
                 longtexthere
              </div>
		</td>
		<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
	</tr>
</table>

This causes the table to fit the width of the page and each column to take up 50% of the width.

If you prefer the first column to take up more of the page, add a width: 80% to the td as in the following example, replacing 80% with the percentage of your choice.

<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 100%">
	<tr>
		<td style="width:80%">
               <div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
                 longtexthere
               </div>
            </td>
		<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
	</tr>
</table>

The only thing that needs to be done is add width to the <td> or the <div> inside the <td> depending on the layout you want to achieve.

eg:

<table style="width: 100%;" border="1"><tr>
<td><div style="word-wrap: break-word; width: 100px;">looooooooooodasdsdaasdasdasddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddasdasdasdsadng word</div></td>
<td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr></table>

or

 <table style="width: 100%;" border="1"><tr>
    <td width="100" ><div style="word-wrap: break-word; ">looooooooooodasdsdaasdasdasddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddasdasdasdsadng word</div></td>
    <td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>

</tr></table>

It appears you need to set word-wrap:break-word; on a block element (div), with specified (non relative) width. Ex:

<table style="width: 100%;"><tr>
    <td><div style="display:block; word-wrap: break-word; width: 40em;">loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word</div></td>
    <td><span style="display: inline;">Foo</span></td>
</tr></table>

or using word-break:break-all per Abhishek Simon's suggestion.

<p style="overflow:hidden; width:200px; word-wrap:break-word;">longtexthere<p>

The answer that won the bounty is correct, but it doesn't work if the first row of the table has a merged/joined cell (all the cells get equal width).

In this case you should use the colgroup and col tags to display it properly:

<table style="table-layout: fixed; width: 200px">
<colgroup>
	<col style="width: 30%;">
	<col style="width: 70%;">
</colgroup>
<tr>
	<td colspan="2">Merged cell</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td style="word-wrap: break-word">VeryLongWordInThisCell</td>
	<td style="word-wrap: break-word">Cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

i tried all but in my case just work for me

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

This works for me:

<style type="text/css">
    td {

        /* CSS 3 */
        white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
        word-wrap: break-word;
        white-space: pre-wrap;
        white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
        white-space: -pre-wrap;
    }

And table attribute is:

   table {
      table-layout: fixed;
      width: 100%
   }

</style>

If you do not need a table border, apply this:

table{
    table-layout:fixed;
    border-collapse:collapse;
}
td{
    word-wrap: break-word;
}

I found a solution that seems to work in Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 7-9. For doing a two-column table layout with long text on the one side. I searched all over for similar problem, and what worked in one browser broke the other, or adding more tags to a table just seems like bad coding.

I did NOT use a table for this. DL DT DD to the rescue. At least for fixing a two-column layout, that is basically a glossary/dictionary/word-meaning setup.

And some generic styling.

    dl {
        margin-bottom:50px;
    }

    dl dt {
        background:#ccc;
        color:#fff;
        float:left;
        font-weight:bold;
        margin-right:10px;
        padding:5px;
        width:100px;
    }

    dl dd {
        margin:2px 0;
        padding:5px 0;
        word-wrap:break-word;
        margin-left:120px;
    }

<dl>
    <dt>test1</dt>
    <dd>Fusce ultricies mi nec orci tempor sit amet</dd>
    <dt>test2</dt>
    <dd>Fusce ultricies</dd>
    <dt>longest</dt>
    <dd>
        Loremipsumdolorsitametconsecteturadipingemipsumdolorsitametconsecteturaelit.Nulla
        laoreet ante et turpis vulputate condimentum. In in elit nisl. Fusce ultricies
        mi nec orci tempor sit amet luctus dui convallis. Fusce viverra rutrum ipsum,
        in sagittis eros elementum eget. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora
        torquent per conubia nostra, per.
    </dd>
</dl>

Using floating word-wrap and margin left, I got exactly what I needed. Just thought I'd share this with others, maybe it will help someone else with a two-column definition style layout, with trouble getting the words to wrap.

I tried using word-wrap in the table cell, but it only worked in Internet Explorer 9, (and Firefox and Google Chrome of course) mainly trying to fix the broken Internet Explorer browser here.

i have same issue this work fine for me

 <style> 
      td{
            word-break: break-word;
      }
    </style>
    <table style="width: 100%;">
      <tr>
<td>Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word</td>
        <td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
      </tr>
    </table>

Common confusing issue here is that we have 2 different css properties: word-wrap and word-break. Then on top of that, word-wrap has an option called break-word.. Easy to mix-up :-)

Usually this worked for me, even inside a table: word-break: break-word;

this might help,

css

.wrap-me{
  word-break: break-all !important;
}

<table>
    <thead>
    <tr>
        <td>Col 1</td>
        <td>Col 2</td>
        <td>Col 3</td>
        <td>Col 4</td>
        <td>Col 5</td>
        <td>Col 6</td>
        <td>Col 7</td>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr>            <td class="wrap-me">tesetonlywithoutspacetesetonlywithoutspacetesetonlywithoutspace</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">test with space long text</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 4</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 5</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 6</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 7</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>            
        <td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">test only</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">test with space long text</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">testwithoutspacetestonlylongtext</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 5</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 6</td>
        <td class="wrap-me">Col 7</td>
    </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

I ran into a similar problem. I had a table inside a Bootstrap modal in an AngularJS application. When I changed the filter on the table and long values appeared in the cell in question, the text would overflow outside the cell, and outside the modal. This CSS ended up fixing the problem, applied to the TD:

style="white-space:pre-wrap; word-break:break-word"

That made the values wrap properly even across changes to the table content.

Tables wrap by default, so make sure the display of the table cells are table-cell:

td {
   display: table-cell;
}

style="table-layout:fixed; width:98%; word-wrap:break-word"

<table bgcolor="white" id="dis" style="table-layout:fixed; width:98%; word-wrap:break-word" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" bordercolordark="white" bordercolorlight="white" >

Demo - http://jsfiddle.net/Ne4BR/749/

This worked great for me. I had long links that would cause the table to exceed 100% on web browsers. Tested on IE, Chrome, Android and Safari.

A solution which work with Google Chrome and Firefox (not tested with Internet Explorer) is to set display: table-cell as a block element.

You can try this if it suits you...

Put a textarea inside your td and disable it with background color white and define its number of rows.

<table style="width: 100%;">
  <tr>
    <td>
        <textarea rows="4" style="background-color:white;border: none;" disabled>      Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong word
      </textarea>
    </td>
    <td><span style="display: inline;">Short word</span></td>
  </tr>
</table>

Just add width. This worked for me.

     <td style="width:10%;"><strong>Item Name</strong></td>

If you only care about text, you can do it without table-layout:fixed

<table>
<tr>
  <td>
    Title
  </td>
  <td>
    Length
  </td>
  <td>
    Action
  </td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
  <td>
    Long song name
  </td>
  <td>
    3:11
  </td>
  <td>
    <button>
    Buy Now!
    </button>
  </td>
  
</tr>

<tr>
  <td  colspan=3>
    <div style='width:200px;background-color:lime;margin-left:20px'>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>quick </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>brown </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>foxed </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>jumped </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>over </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>

      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>lazy </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>brown </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>cat </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>

      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
      <div style='float:left;white-space:pre'>the </div>
    
    </div>
    
  </td>
</tr>


  <tr>
  <td>
    Long song name1
  </td>
  <td>
    2:20
  </td>
  <td>
    <button>
    Buy Now!
    </button>
  </td>
  
</tr>


</table>

A simple workaround is to use
every few words to trim it down.