CSS: How to Keep Text Within a Bordered Container

When designing a webpage, it’s common to place text inside a bordered container—like a card, box, or alert. But if not styled correctly, the text may overflow, break the layout, or touch the borders, making it hard to read.

In this blog post, you’ll learn:

• ✅ How to place text inside a bordered box
• ✅ How to use CSS properties to keep the text contained
• ✅ How to prevent overflow issues
• 🧪 Practical examples with borders, padding, and overflow control

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✅ 1. Basic Bordered Container with Text

Let’s start with a clean, simple container.

✅ HTML:

<div class="text-container">
  This is some text inside a bordered container. It stays neatly inside the box.
</div>

✅ CSS:

.text-container {
  border: 2px solid #333;
  padding: 16px;
  width: 300px;
  font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

✅ Padding creates space between the text and the border, keeping it readable.

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🚫 2. Prevent Text Overflow (Long Words or URLs)

Sometimes, long text like URLs or unbroken strings can overflow the box.

✅ Fix It with:

.text-container {
  word-wrap: break-word;
  overflow-wrap: break-word;
}

✅ Example:

<div class="text-container">
  ThisIsAnExtremelyLongUnbrokenWordThatWouldNormallyBreakTheBoxLayoutButNowWrapsCorrectly.
</div>

🧠 This makes the container wrap long words instead of letting them spill out.

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🧪 3. Scrollable Overflow (Optional)

If you want the container to scroll when there’s too much text:

.scroll-box {
  width: 300px;
  height: 100px;
  border: 1px solid #999;
  padding: 10px;
  overflow: auto;
}

<div class="scroll-box">
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
</div>

✅ This ensures content stays within the border without breaking the layout.

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🧠 Summary of CSS Properties

Property	Purpose
border	Creates the visible container
padding	Adds space between text and border
overflow-wrap	Prevents long words from overflowing
overflow	Controls scrolling or clipping of overflow text
width / height	Defines box dimensions

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🧠 Best Practices

• ✔️ Always use padding to avoid text hugging the border
• ✔️ Use overflow-wrap: break-word for long strings
• ✔️ Consider max-width or width for consistency
• ✔️ Use responsive units (em, %, rem) for fluid layouts

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🏁 Final Thoughts

Keeping text within a bordered container is essential for clean, readable design. With just a few CSS properties like padding, border, and overflow-wrap, you can ensure your text stays tidy, accessible, and visually appealing—regardless of screen size or content length.

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📚 Further Reading

• MDN: CSS Box Model
• MDN: overflow-wrap
• W3Schools: CSS Border