What is the CSS `word-break` and `overflow-wrap` properties?
Jul 22, 2025 am 12:24 AMBoth word-break and overflow-wrap control text wrapping behavior, but have different uses. 1. word-break determines how words break lines, which is suitable for CJK language or scenes where forced vocabulary is required; 2. overflow-wrap prevents overflow and prioritizes keeping the words intact. Common values such as break-all (word-break) force a word verb, break-word (overflow-wrap) only break when necessary. When using it, if you pay attention to the complete layout, use overflow-wrap, and use word-break if you need multi-language or multi-column layout. Both are invalid in the currentrap environment.
If you've ever tried to handle long words or URLs in a condensed container using CSS, you might have come across word-break
and overflow-wrap
. These two properties control how the browser breaks text inside containers — especially when dealing with long strings that don't naturally contain spaces.

What Does word-break
Do?
The word-break
property controls how words break when they reach the edge of their container. It's particularly useful when dealing with languages like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (CJK), where words aren't separated by spaces.
Here are the common values:

-
normal
: Words only break at allowed break points. -
break-all
: Allows breaking within words if needed to prevent overflow — useful for non-CJK content. -
keep-all
: Prevents breaking within words (mainly for CJK text).
For example, if you have a narrow container and a long word like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", setting word-break: break-all
would force it to wrap even in the middle of the word.
How Is overflow-wrap
Different?
overflow-wrap
(sometimes still referred to by its old name word-wrap
, which is now an alias) focuss on preventing overflow caused by long words. Its main purpose is to avoid layout issues by allowing a word to wrap onto the next line if it doesn't fit .

Key values include:
-
normal
: Words only break at normal word break points. -
break-word
: Allows breaking inside words if necessary to prevent overflow — note that this is not exactly the same asword-break: break-all
.
While both word-break: break-all
and overflow-wrap: break-word
can help with long words, the difference lies in how aggressively they break text. overflow-wrap
tries to preserve whole words if possible, while word-break: break-all
will split regardless.
When Should You Use Which?
Use overflow-wrap
if your main concern is keeping layout intact and avoiding horizontal overflow from long words — especially in cases like user-generated content or code blocks.
Use word-break
if you need more aggressive control over how text wraps, especially in multilingual contexts or when working with narrow columns where every character counts.
A few practical use cases:
- In a comment section with unpredictable input,
overflow-wrap: break-word
helps keep everything inside its container. - On mobile views with limited width, combining
word-break: break-all
andwhite-space: pre-wrap
can help preserve formatting without breaking layout.
A Common Gotcha
It's easy to mix up these two properties because they seem similar. But remember:
-
word-break
affects how words break regardless of whether they're needed. -
overflow-wrap
only breaks when there's no other option to prevent overflow.
Also, if you're using white-space: nowrap
somewhere, neither of these properties will take effect since wrapping is explicitly disabled.
So, basically, pick based on intent: control wrapping behavior ( overflow-wrap
) or force break behavior ( word-break
).
That's about it — not rocket science, but definitely something worth understanding when you start running into text overflow issues.
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