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

Question

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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

You can do it using -webkit-line-clamp. But a hack is needed. You need to set the height of the div such that it can accommodate only two lines.

See this codepen https://codepen.io/VamsiKaja/pen/xYZVzY

HTML file :

<p class="">Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et </p>

CSS file :

p {
    width:250px;  
    font-size:20px;
    margin:1em;
    height:50px;
    display: -webkit-box;
    -webkit-line-clamp: 2;
    -webkit-box-orient: vertical;
    overflow: hidden;

}