text-wrap: balance CSS property

[kojiishi]

Request for position on an emerging web specification

• WebKittens who can provide input:

Information about the specification

• Title: CSS text-wrap: balance
• URL: https://w3c.github.io/csswg-drafts/css-text-4/#valdef-text-wrap-balance
• GitHub repository: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts
• Explainer (if not README.md in the repository): https://docs.google.com/document/d/16-T9gqCagJxcST6hcnneSb7qGunxXa37_UHYqMqhPL0/edit?usp=sharing

Design reviews and vendor positions

• TAG Design Review: text-wrap: balance w3ctag/design-reviews#822
• Mozilla standards-positions issue: CSS text-wrap: balance mozilla/standards-positions#755

Bugs tracking this feature

• WebKit Bugzilla: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249840
• Radar: rdar://103663513

Anything else we need to know

This feature adjusts line breaking to balance the lengths of lines in a paragraph, for better readability and to prevent typographic widows. This feature is often used in headlines.

Jen's tweet has a sample image, and it got a lot of positive responses from web developers.

This covers just the text-wrap property, with values wrap (initial) and balance. Other values need to wait for the spec to complete making the white-space to a shorthand. Please see the "CSS" section of the explainer.

[annevk]

I discussed this with colleagues and we suggest "position: support" for this. Please say something if you disagree within a week!