Text in a flex container doesn't wrap in IE11

Question

Consider the following snippet:

.parent {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  width: 400px;
  border: 1px solid red;
  align-items: center;
}
.child {
  border: 1px solid blue;
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
</div>

In Chrome, the text is wrapping as expected:

But, in IE11, the text is not wrapping:

Is this a known bug in IE? (if yes, a pointer will be appreciated)

Is there a known workaround?

---

This similar question doesn't have a definite answer and an official pointer.

Answer 1

Add this to your code:

.child { width: 100%; }

We know that a block-level child is supposed to occupy the full width of the parent.

Chrome understands this.

IE11, for whatever reason, wants an explicit request.

Using flex-basis: 100% or flex: 1 also works.

.parent {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  width: 400px;
  border: 1px solid red;
  align-items: center;
}
.child {
  border: 1px solid blue;
  width: calc(100% - 2px);       /* NEW; used calc to adjust for parent borders */
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
</div>

Note: Sometimes it will be necessary to sort through the various levels of the HTML structure to pinpoint which container gets the width: 100%. CSS wrap text not working in IE

Answer 2

I had the same issue and the point is that the element was not adapting its width to the container.

Instead of using width:100%, be consistent (don't mix the floating model and the flex model) and use flex by adding this:

.child { align-self: stretch; }

Or:

.parent { align-items: stretch; }

This worked for me.

Answer 3

As Tyler has suggested in one of the comments here, using

max-width: 100%;

on the child may work (worked for me). Using align-self: stretch only works if you aren't using align-items: center (which I did). width: 100% only works if you haven't multiple childs inside your flexbox which you want to show side by side.

Answer 4

Hi for me I had to apply the 100% width to its grandparent element. Not its child element(s).

.grandparent {
    float:left;
    clear: both;
    width:100%; //fix for IE11 text overflow
}

.parent {
    display: flex;
    border: 1px solid red;
    align-items: center;
}

.child {
    border: 1px solid blue;
}

Answer 5

Somehow all these solutions didn't work for me. There is clearly an IE bug in flex-direction:column.

I only got it working after removing flex-direction:

flex-wrap: wrap;
align-items: center;
align-content: center;

Answer 6

The easiest solution I've found is just adding max-width: 100% to the element that's going out of bounds. If you're using it on something like a carousel remember to add a class with the max-width attribute.

Answer 7

.grandparent{
   display: table;
}

.parent{
  display: table-cell
  vertical-align: middle
}

This worked for me.

Answer 8

The proposed solutions did not help me with ".child {width: 100%;}", since I had more complicated markup. However, I found a solution - remove "align-items: center;", and it works for this case too.

.parent {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  width: 400px;
  border: 1px solid red;
  /*align-items: center;*/
}
.child {
  border: 1px solid blue;
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
</div>

Answer 9

The only way I have 100% consistently been able to avoid this flex-direction column bug is to use a min-width media query to assign a max-width to the child element on desktop sized screens.

.parent {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column;
}

//a media query targeting desktop sort of sized screens
@media screen and (min-width: 980px) {
    .child {
        display: block;
        max-width: 500px;//maximimum width of the element on a desktop sized screen
    }
}

You will need to set naturally inline child elements (eg. <span> or <a>) to something other than inline (mainly display:block or display:inline-block) for the fix to work.

Answer 10

Me too I encountered this issue.

The only alternative is to define a width (or max-width) in the child elements. IE 11 is a bit stupid, and me I just spent 20 minutes to realize this solution.

.parent {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  width: 800px;
  border: 1px solid red;
  align-items: center;
}
.child {
  border: 1px solid blue;
  max-width: 800px;
  @media (max-width:960px){ // <--- Here we go. The text won't wrap ? we will make it break !
    max-width: 600px;
  }
  @media (max-width:600px){
    max-width: 400px;
  }
  @media (max-width:400px){
    max-width: 150px;
  }
}

<div class="parent">
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry
  </div>
</div>

Answer 11

I did not find my solution here, maybe someone will be useful:

.child-with-overflowed-text{
  word-wrap: break-all;
}

Good luck!

Answer 12

I had a similar issue with overflowing images in a flex wrapper.

Adding either flex-basis: 100%; or flex: 1; to the overflowing child fixed worked for me.

Answer 13

Why use a complicated solution if a simple one works too?

.child {
  white-space: normal;
}