The HTML <wbr> element represents a word break opportunity—a position within text where the browser may optionally break a line, though its line-breaking rules would not otherwise create a break at that location.

HTML Demo: <wbr>

<div id="example-paragraphs">
    <p>Fernstraßenbauprivatfinanzierungsgesetz</p>
    <p>Fernstraßen<wbr>bau<wbr>privat<wbr>finanzierungs<wbr>gesetz</p>
    <p>Fernstraßen&shy;bau&shy;privat&shy;finanzierungs&shy;gesetz</p>
</div>
​x
 
1
<div id="example-paragraphs">
2
    <p>Fernstraßenbauprivatfinanzierungsgesetz</p>
3
    <p>Fernstraßen<wbr>bau<wbr>privat<wbr>finanzierungs<wbr>gesetz</p>
4
    <p>Fernstraßen&shy;bau&shy;privat&shy;finanzierungs&shy;gesetz</p>
5
</div>
6
​

Output

Fernstraßenbauprivatfinanzierungsgesetz
Fernstraßenbauprivatfinanzierungsgesetz
Fernstraßen­bau­privat­finanzierungs­gesetz
The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.
The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.
Content categories Flow content, phrasing content.
Permitted content Empty
Tag omission It is an empty element; it must have a start tag, but must not have an end tag.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles Any
DOM interface HTMLElement

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Notes

On UTF-8 encoded pages, <wbr> behaves like the U+200B ZERO-WIDTH SPACE code point. In particular, it behaves like a Unicode bidi BN code point, meaning it has no effect on bidi-ordering: <div dir=rtl>123,<wbr>456</div> displays, when not broken on two lines, 123,456 and not 456,123.
For the same reason, the <wbr> element does not introduce a hyphen at the line break point. To make a hyphen appear only at the end of a line, use the soft hyphen character entity (&shy;) instead.
This element was first implemented in Internet Explorer 5.5 and was officially defined in HTML5.

Example

The Yahoo Style Guide recommends breaking a URL before punctuation, to avoid leaving a punctuation mark at the end of the line, which the reader might mistake for the end of the URL.
<p>http://this<wbr>.is<wbr>.a<wbr>.really<wbr>.long<wbr>.example<wbr>.com/With<wbr>/deeper<wbr>/level<wbr>/pages<wbr>/deeper<wbr>/level<wbr>/pages<wbr>/deeper<wbr>/level<wbr>/pages<wbr>/deeper<wbr>/level<wbr>/pages<wbr>/deeper<wbr>/level<wbr>/pages</p>
http://this.is.a.really.long.example.com/With/deeper/level/pages/deeper/level/pages/deeper/level/pages/deeper/level/pages/deeper/level/pages

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
ChromeEdgeFirefoxInternet ExplorerOperaSafariWebView AndroidChrome AndroidFirefox AndroidOpera AndroidiOS SafariSamsung Internet
wbr

Legend

Full supportFull support
Compatibility unknownCompatibility unknown
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out http://web.archive.org/web/20210117001040/https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also