white-space
Baseline Widely available *
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.
Try it
CSS Demo: white-space
white-space: normal;
white-space: pre;
white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: pre-line;
white-space: wrap;
white-space: collapse;
white-space: preserve nowrap;
The property specifies two things:
- Whether and how white space is collapsed.
- Whether and how lines wrap.
Constituent properties
This property is a shorthand for the following CSS properties:
Note:
The spec defines a third constituent property:
white-space-trim, which is not implemented in any browser yet.Syntax
css
/* Single keyword values */
white-space: normal;
white-space: pre;
white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: pre-line;
/* white-space-collapse and text-wrap-mode shorthand values */
white-space: nowrap;
white-space: wrap;
white-space: break-spaces;
white-space: collapse;
white-space: preserve nowrap;
/* Global values */
white-space: inherit;
white-space: initial;
white-space: revert;
white-space: revert-layer;
white-space: unset;
Values
The
white-space property values can be specified as one or two keywords representing the values for the white-space-collapse and text-wrap-mode properties, or the following special keywords:normal-
Sequences of white space are collapsed. Newline characters in the source are handled the same as other white spaces. Lines are broken as necessary to fill line boxes. Equivalent to
collapse wrap. pre-
Sequences of white space are preserved. Lines are only broken at newline characters in the source and at
<br>elements. Equivalent topreserve nowrap. pre-wrap-
Sequences of white space are preserved. Lines are broken at newline characters, at
<br>, and as necessary to fill line boxes. Equivalent topreserve wrap. pre-line
Note:
The
white-space property as a shorthand is a relatively new feature (see browser compatibility). Originally, it had six keyword values; now, the value nowrap is instead interpreted as a value for text-wrap-mode, while the value break-spaces is interpreted as a value for white-space-collapse. The above four keywords are still specific to white-space, but they have longhand equivalents. The change to make white-space a shorthand expands acceptable values to even more keywords and combinations, such as wrap and collapse.The following table summarizes the behavior of these four
white-space keyword values:| New lines | Spaces and tabs | Text wrapping | End-of-line spaces | End-of-line other space separators | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
normal |
Collapse | Collapse | Wrap | Remove | Hang |
pre |
Preserve | Preserve | No wrap | Preserve | No wrap |
pre-wrap |
Preserve | Preserve | Wrap | Hang | Hang |
pre-line |
Preserve | Collapse | Wrap | Remove | Hang |
A tab defaults to 8 spaces and can be configured using the
tab-size property. In the case of normal, nowrap, and pre-line values, every tab is converted to a space (U+0020) character.Note:
There is a distinction made between spaces and other space separators. These are defined as follows:
- spaces
-
Spaces (U+0020), tabs (U+0009), and segment breaks (such as newlines).
- other space separators
-
All other space separators defined in Unicode, other than those already defined as spaces.
Where white space is said to hang, this can affect the size of the box when measured for intrinsic sizing.
Collapsing of white space
The
white-space-collapse property page explains the browser algorithm for collapsing white space.Formal definition
| Initial value | normal |
|---|---|
| Applies to | all elements |
| Inherited | yes |
| Computed value | as specified |
| Animation type | discrete |
Formal syntax
Examples
Basic example
css
code {
white-space: pre;
}
Line breaks inside <pre> elements
css
pre {
white-space: pre-wrap;
}
In action
Controlling line wrapping in tables
HTML
html
<table>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Very long content that splits</td>
<td class="nw">Very long content that don't split</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="nw">white-space:</td>
<td>normal</td>
<td>nowrap</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS
css
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
border: solid black 1px;
width: 250px;
height: 150px;
}
td {
border: solid 1px black;
text-align: center;
}
.nw {
white-space: nowrap;
}
Result
Multiple lines in SVG text element
The
white-space CSS property can be used to create multiple lines in a <text> element, which does not wrap by default.HTML
The text inside the
<text> element needs to be split into multiple lines for the new lines to be detected. After the first line the rest need to have their whitespace removed.html
<svg viewBox="0 0 320 150">
<text y="20" x="10">Here is an English paragraph
that is broken into multiple lines
in the source code so that it can
be more easily read and edited
in a text editor.
</text>
</svg>
CSS
css
text {
white-space: break-spaces;
}
Result
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| CSS Text Module Level 4 # white-space-property |
| Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2 # TextWhiteSpace |
Browser compatibility
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Chrome
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Edge
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Firefox
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Opera
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Safari
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Chrome Android
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Firefox for Android
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Opera Android
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Safari on iOS
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Samsung Internet
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WebView Android
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WebView on iOS
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Accepts shorthand values
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Support on
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Legend
Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.
Full support
Partial support
No support
Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.
Has more compatibility info.
See also
- Properties that define how words break within themselves:
overflow-wrap,word-break,hyphens tab-size



