The text-overflow property in CSS controls how text is displayed when it overflows its container. 1. It has two main values: clip, which cuts off text without an indicator, and ellipsis, which adds "…" to show more content exists. 2. To work, elements must have white-space: nowrap, overflow: hidden, and a defined width. 3. For multi-line truncation, -webkit-line-clamp is used with display: -webkit-box, -webkit-box-orient: vertical, and overflow: hidden. 4. Ellipsis is preferred when signaling hidden content, while clip offers a cleaner cut. 5. Additional techniques like tooltips or expandable text can enhance user experience when full content access is needed.
When you're working with text in CSS and need to handle cases where the text overflows its container, text-overflow
comes into play. It lets you control how that overflow is visually represented — whether it's hidden, clipped, or shown with an ellipsis.

Basic Usage: Clipping vs Ellipsis
The text-overflow
property has two commonly used values: clip
and ellipsis
.
-
clip
simply cuts off the text without any visual indicator. -
ellipsis
adds "…" at the point where the text is cut off, signaling that there's more content.
To make either of these work, a few conditions must be met:

- The element must have
white-space: nowrap
(for single-line overflow). - It should have a defined width or max-width.
- Overflow needs to be hidden (
overflow: hidden
).
Without those, text-overflow
won’t take effect.
For example:

.truncate { white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; max-width: 200px; }
This will show an ellipsis if the text inside this element exceeds 200px in width.
Multi-line Text Overflow
CSS doesn't directly support multi-line ellipsis with text-overflow
, but you can achieve it using -webkit-line-clamp
. This works best when combined with other properties like display: -webkit-box
, -webkit-box-orient: vertical
, and overflow: hidden
.
Here’s a common setup:
.multi-line { display: -webkit-box; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; }
This limits the text to three lines and shows an ellipsis at the end if it overflows.
Note that this method uses WebKit-specific styles, so it may not work perfectly in all browsers, especially older ones.
When to Use Each Value
Choose based on user experience and design goals:
- Use
clip
when you want a clean cut and don’t want to signal more content. - Use
ellipsis
when users might benefit from knowing there's more text hidden. - For multi-line truncation, use
-webkit-line-clamp
withtext-overflow: ellipsis
for better visual feedback.
Also, consider tooltips or expanding the text on interaction if users need access to the full content.
That’s how text-overflow
works in most real-world scenarios — straightforward when dealing with single lines, a bit trickier for multiple lines, but totally doable with a few extra CSS rules.
The above is the detailed content of Explain the CSS `text-overflow` property. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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