Help:Line-break handling

This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts WP:LINEBREAK H:LINEBREAK

This page explains different methods for creating, controlling and preventing line breaks and word wraps in Wikipedia articles and pages.

When a paragraph or line of text is too long to fit on one line, web browsers, like many other programs, automatically wrap the text to the next line. Web browsers usually wrap the line where there are natural breaks such as spaces, hyphens, etc. in the text.

There are several ways to force line breaks and paragraph breaks in the text. The simplest method is by inserting newlines; for example:

A single newline in the markup 
does not cause a visible line break.

Two newlines in the markup

causes a paragraph break.

Three newlines in the markup


causes an extra-wide paragraph break. This should normally be avoided.

<br>, <br >, <br/>, <br />

The MediaWiki software uses any of them for a single forced line break. All of them are converted to <br /> in the HTML that browsers read.

MediaWiki also converts </br> to <br />, but this form is invalid. Please correct these tags.

For content that is semantically a list, such as in infoboxes, actual list markup is preferred. See § Lists below.

And this line of text<br>will break in the middle.

The example below includes five forms, including the invalid </br>, that are rendered as line breaks and two that display as plain text.

The <poem> extension adds HTML-like tags to maintain newlines and spaces. This is useful for longer blocks of text such as poems, lyrics, mottoes, oaths and the like. These tags may be used inside other tags such as <blockquote>. For example:

<poem>
In Xanadu did [[Kubla Khan]]
  A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
  Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
  With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
</poem>

<pre>...</pre> and its alternatives are typically used to display code; their contents are rendered in monospace with a frame and different background colour. Both markup and newlines within <pre>...</pre> are reproduced verbatim. However, the first newline after <pre> and last newline before </pre> are ignored, allowing the tags to be placed on their own lines without extra empty lines appearing on the page.

<pre>
{{2x|foo}}<br />bar
[[wiki]]
</pre>

{{2x|foo}}<br />bar
[[wiki]]

To evaluate markup while still preserving newlines, the alternatives <pre<includeonly></includeonly>></pre> and {{Pre}} can be used.

{{Pre |
{{2x|foo}}<br />bar
[[wiki]]
}}

foofoo
bar
wiki

The effect of the tag <nowiki>...</nowiki> on line breaks is that single and double line breaks are ignored, and you also cannot add a line break with <br />:

<nowiki>
Single line breaks,
and double line breaks as well,

are ignored,
and the tag <br />
is just displayed as is.
</nowiki>

There are several ways to enable line breaks in text that uses <nowiki>...</nowiki>:

Solution 1. Use <nowiki>...</nowiki> for each line separately, with <br /> or double newline between lines.

<nowiki>Around the entire line,</nowiki> <br />
or only around text that must be escaped: <nowiki>{{2x|bar}}</nowiki>.

<nowiki> Extra  spaces   are still collapsed. </nowiki>

Solution 2: Use <poem>...</poem>.

<poem><nowiki>Twas bryllyg, and ''y<sup>e</sup>'' slythy toves
  Did gyre and gymble in ''y<sup>e</sup>'' wabe:
All mimsy were ''y<sup>e</sup>'' borogoves,
  And ''y<sup>e</sup>'' mome raths outgrabe.</nowiki></poem>

When <poem>...</poem> is used with <nowiki>...</nowiki>, the contents must begin on the same line as the tags, because a leading newline will appear in the output. However, the last newline is ignored, so the closing tags may be on their own line.

<poem><nowiki>
Extra line above
</nowiki></poem>

Solution 3: Consider using "><pre> instead of <nowiki>...</nowiki>.

Numbered and bulleted lists are created using standard wiki markup. In cases where a plain list without number or bullet is desired, such as in an infobox, many editors will simply create a list using breaks. This method does not apply the semantics of a list, and for those using screen readers it will not sound like a list. For these cases, {{plainlist}} and {{unbulleted list}} both use list markup without numbers or bullets:

{{plainlist|
* cat
* dog
* horse
* cow
* sheep
* pig
}}

To display formulas with <math> on their own line, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Using LaTeX markup recommends <math display=block>.

This section in a nutshell: To prevent word wraps use   in place of each space; and use ‑ in place of each hyphen. For more complex cases, see below.

There are several ways to prevent word wraps (line wraps) from occurring in unwanted places. This is an overview of when to use which method.

The HTML entity   is a non-breaking, or hard, space. It renders like a normal space " ", but prevents a line wrap from occurring, like this:

Lots of text 10 kg more text.

The non-breaking space works within links exactly like a regular space. Thus you can link to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] directly and it will render as J. R. R. Tolkien. The initials will not be separated across a line break.

However,   renders the source text harder to read and edit. Avoid using it unless it is really necessary to avoid a line break.

Browsers may break words at hyphens. A non-breaking hyphen ‑ may be used to prevent this occurring, as in:

As seen on page C‑2 of the newspaper.

This code generates "page C‑2" just like the plain code "page C-2", but prevents a line break at the hyphen.

However, like  , the use of ‑ instead of "-" renders the source text harder to read and edit. Don't use it unless it is really necessary to avoid a line break.

The templates {{Inline block}} and {{Avoid wrap}} avoid breaks, but allow them if there is not enough space. {{awrap}} is a shorthand of the latter.

{{inline block|{{color|blue|Lorem ipsum
 dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
 elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt.}}}}

{{inline block|{{color|green|Sed ut perspiciatis
 unde omnis iste natus error sit
 voluptatem accusantium.}}}}

{{avoid wrap|{{color|blue|Lorem ipsum
 dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
 elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt.}}}}

{{awrap|{{color|green|Sed ut perspiciatis
 unde omnis iste natus error sit
 voluptatem accusantium.}}}}

Both put the content in <span style="display:inline-block;">. The latter also adds the CSS class "avoidwrap".

The {{nowrap}} template is less flexible and will prevent breaks even when the line is too long for the window, forcing the user to scroll:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt. Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium.

It is good for short text sections like "10 kg (22 lb)", which should always stay together.
This could also be achieved with the non-breaking space: Lots of text 10 kg (22 lb) more text.
But this makes the source text hard to read. The template is recommended instead: Lots of text {{nowrap|10 kg (22 lb)}} more text.

(For the specific case of unit conversions, see {{convert}}.)

In some cases {{nowrap}} doesn't work so well. For instance, when you want to prevent wraps in longer or more complex text, then it might be hard to see where the {{nowrap}} ends. Additionally, the MediaWiki template mechanisms interpret characters such as equal signs "=" and pipes "|" in template parameters as special characters, and thus they cause problems. In these cases, it is instead recommended to use {{nowrap begin}} + {{nowrap end}}, like this:

{{nowrap begin}}2 + 2 = 4{{nowrap end}} and
{{nowrap begin}}|2| < 3{{nowrap end}}

It may render like this:

2 + 2 = 4 and

|2| < 3

But it will not render like this:

2 + 2 = 4 and |2|

< 3

To insert a word-break opportunity, use <wbr>.

It specifies where it would be OK to add a line-break where a word is too long, or it is perceived that the browser will break a line at the wrong place. Whether the line actually breaks is then left up to the browser. The break will look like a space - see soft hyphen below when it would be more appropriate to break the word or line using a hyphen.

Now is the time to become a power editor, by learning Hyper<wbr>Text Markup Language...

Note that <wbr> will not work inside {{nowrap}}.

In many cases breaking up a word with a space would be inappropriate. Soft hyphens also creates word-break opportunities, but will add a hyphen rather than a space. In other words, a soft hyphen is a hyphen inserted into a word not otherwise hyphenated, to be displayed or typeset only if it falls at the end of a line of text.

The code ­ is employed in the same manner as <wbr>. For example:

This long German word Datenschutz­erklärung breaks between its constituent parts "Datenschutz" and "erklärung".

Use of soft hyphens should be limited to special cases, usually involving very long words or narrow spaces (such as captions in infoboxes or other tight page layouts, or column labels in narrow tables). Widespread use of soft hyphens is strongly discouraged, because it makes the wikitext very difficult to read and to edit. For example:

This Wi­ki­source ex­am­ple is dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand

Consider instead using the {{shy}} template for such complex cases:

{{shy|This al|ter|na|tive syn|tax im|proves read|a|bil|ity}}

In lists of links such as inside infoboxes and navboxes, use a horizontal list (perhaps via the template {{flatlist}}) to format lists.

For occasional cases where you need to delineate two pieces of text outside of a list, you can use the templates {{·}} or {{•}} which contain a   before the dot, thus handling some of the wrapping problems.

• mw:Manual:Newlines and spaces
• {{break}}
• {{clear}}
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Non-breaking spaces