CSS: How to Prevent Line Break – Keep Text on a Single Line

In web design, there are times when you need to keep text on a single line — such as in buttons, navigation links, or labels. By default, text will wrap to the next line if there’s not enough space. But with a few lines of CSS, you can easily prevent unwanted line breaks.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to prevent line breaks in CSS using simple properties like white-space and nowrap — with practical examples and best use cases.

Table of Contents

✅ Why Prevent Line Breaks?

Preventing line breaks is useful when you want to:

Keep navigation items or tabs in one line
Ensure a label or button stays intact
Prevent text from splitting awkwardly on mobile
Maintain the layout of cards, tables, or headers

🛠️ Solution: Use `white-space: nowrap;`

The most common and reliable way to prevent a line break is:

.no-break {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

📌 Explanation:

white-space controls how white space and line breaks are handled.
nowrap tells the browser not to break lines, even if the content overflows.

🧪 Example: Keep Button Text in One Line

<style>
  .no-break-button {
    white-space: nowrap;
    padding: 10px 20px;
    background-color: #007bff;
    color: white;
    border: none;
    font-size: 16px;
  }
</style>

<button class="no-break-button">Do Not Break Text</button>

✅ Even if the button shrinks, the text stays on one line (though it may overflow).

🔒 Prevent Breaks in Headings or Labels

h1, label {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

This is especially helpful when you want a title or label to remain in a single line across devices.

🔄 Combine with Overflow Handling

If the container is smaller than the content, it might overflow. Combine white-space with:

overflow: hidden;
text-overflow: ellipsis;

Example:

.single-line {
  white-space: nowrap;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

Result:

Long text will stay on one line and get truncated with ... if it overflows.

📏 Use Case: Table Cell Without Line Break

td.no-break {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

This ensures table content like price, date, or code doesn’t wrap unexpectedly.

💡 Tip: Use Responsibly

While white-space: nowrap is powerful, overuse can cause layout issues, especially on smaller screens. Always test for:

Overflowing text
Hidden content
Broken responsiveness

🔚 Conclusion

Controlling line breaks with CSS gives you precision over your layout. Whether you’re styling buttons, headings, or table cells, white-space: nowrap is the key to keeping content on a single line.

📌 Quick Recap

Goal	CSS Code
Prevent all line breaks	`white-space: nowrap;`
Prevent and handle overflow	`white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;`
For specific elements	Apply `.no-break` class