Sun Aug 02 2020
QuickTip: Using CSS «line-clamp» to truncate text to a set number of lines
When working with dynamic text content it can be quite useful to be able to truncate the number of text lines displayed in a HTML element. This can be done using the CSS `«line-clamp»` property.
Consider the HTML below. We have a div with a paragraph inside containing some text. For this demo we want to show max 3 lines of text in this div element.
<div class="content">
<p>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec venenatis velit sit amet dui semper dignissim.
More dynamic text here.
</p>
</div>Lets say the max width of the `content` div is 200 pixels and max of 100 pixels in height.
.content {
width: 200px;
height: 100px;
padding: 10px;
}We want to truncate all text over 3 lines. Here we set the display to «-webkit-box» and the «-webkit-line-clamp» property to 3 lines of text.
.content p {
display: -webkit-box;
-webkit-line-clamp: 3;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
overflow: hidden;
}