The new value 'anywhere' allows an otherwise unbreakable sequence of characters to be broken at an arbitrary point if there are no otherwise-acceptable break points in a line. Additionally, soft wrap opportunities introduced by 'anywhere' are considered when calculating min-content intrinsic sizes.

Motivation

This feature address a long standing web compatibility issue related to the 'word-break: break-word' feature. The CSS Text 3 spec still allows the 'break-word' value to ensure compatibility (Safari and Chrome support it), but its marked as deprecated; that's why Firefox doesn't implement it. The 'word-break: break-word' feature provides a behavior that web authors really appreciate, which consist on breaking opportunities account for the min-content size. Several approaches have been explored, but all of them lead to serious web compatibility issues, so that the CSS WG resolved that a new CSS value should be the best solution.

Demos

Documentation

Specification

Editor's draft

Status in Chromium

Blink>Layout


Enabled by default (tracking bug) in:

  • Chrome for desktop release 80
  • Chrome for Android release 80
  • Android WebView release 80

Consensus & Standardization

After a feature ships in Chrome, the values listed here are not guaranteed to be up to date.

  • Shipped/Shipping
  • No signal
  • No signal
  • Positive

Owner

Last updated on 2020-12-21