How can I do text-overflow: ellipsis on two lines?

Issue

I have a container where the text may expand to two lines and it’s 40px in height, with an 18px font size. When I do:

text-overflow: ellipsis;
white-space: nowrap;

Then the dotted line shows correctly but it gets cut off on one line. When I do just the:

text-overflow: ellipsis;

Then it correctly shows the 2 lines but there’s no “…” at the end. How do I achieve this so it correctly uses both lines AND finishes with “…” on the second line?

Solution

Add a span to the container, which will hold the text:

<div class="container">
  <span>text...</span>
</span>

Add this CSS:

.container {
   overflow: hidden;
   position: relative;
   background: white;   //or other color
}

.container:after {
  content: '...';       //the ellipsis
  position: absolute;   //positioned in bottom-right
  bottom: 0;            //...
  right: 0;             //...
  padding: 0 0.3em;     //give some separation from text
  background: inherit;  //same color as container
}

.container span:after {
  content: '\0000a0';   //a space
  position: absolute;   //to cover up ellipsis if needed
  width: 1000px;        //...
  z-index: 1;           //...
  background: white;    //must match container's color.  can't use inherit here.
}

Fiddle

Resize the container, and you’ll see that the ellipsis displays only as necessary.

Should work in all modern browsers.

Answered By – Rick Hitchcock

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