Make A Block Of Text Respect New Lines

Generally when we fill a div tag full of text, it will display it one long strand irrespective of any line breaks that are included. This is a great default, but not necessarily what we want when we are displaying text from another source, such as our users.

We can convince a block of text to respect new lines by adding a couple CSS properties.

.multiline-text {
  word-wrap: break-word;
  white-space: pre-line;
}

The first rule, word-wrap: break-word, ensures that long lines of text uninterrupted by new lines respect the boundaries of our wrapping element. The second rule, white-space: pre-line, handles squashing of extra white space and respecting of new lines.

See a working example here.