Cross-browser multi-line text overflow with ellipsis appended within a fixed width and height

Question

I made an image for this question to make it easier to understand.

Is it possible to create an ellipsis on a

with a fixed width and multiple

Answer 1

Pure JS demo (without jQuery and 'while' loop)

When I searched solution of multiline ellipsis problem I was surprised that there is no any good one without jQuery. Also there are a few solutions based on 'while' loop, but I think they are not effective and dangerous due to possibility to get into infinite loop. So I wrote this code:

function ellipsizeTextBox(el) {
  if (el.scrollHeight <= el.offsetHeight) {
    return;
  }

  let wordArray = el.innerHTML.split(' ');
  const wordsLength = wordArray.length;
  let activeWord;
  let activePhrase;
  let isEllipsed = false;

  for (let i = 0; i < wordsLength; i++) {
    if (el.scrollHeight > el.offsetHeight) {
      activeWord = wordArray.pop();
      el.innerHTML = activePhrase = wordArray.join(' ');
    } else {
      break;
    }
  }

  let charsArray = activeWord.split('');
  const charsLength = charsArray.length;

  for (let i = 0; i < charsLength; i++) {
    if (el.scrollHeight > el.offsetHeight) {
      charsArray.pop();
      el.innerHTML = activePhrase + ' ' + charsArray.join('')  + '...';
      isEllipsed = true;
    } else {
      break;
    }
  }

  if (!isEllipsed) {
    activePhrase = el.innerHTML;

    let phraseArr = activePhrase.split('');
    phraseArr = phraseArr.slice(0, phraseArr.length - 3)
    el.innerHTML = phraseArr.join('') + '...';
  }
}

let el = document.getElementById('ellipsed');

ellipsizeTextBox(el);