Web/HTML/Element/wbr

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.

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 () 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>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of '<wbr>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5The definition of '<wbr>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`wbr`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 79	Firefox Full support 1	IE No support 5.5 — 7	Opera Full support 11.6	Safari Full support 4	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android ?	Safari iOS ?	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support
No support: No support
Compatibility unknown: Compatibility unknown