From the spec: Text runs must be wrapped according to the CSS line-wrapping rules, with the following additional constraints: Regardless of the value of the 'white-space' property, lines must be wrapped at the edge of their containing blocks, even if doing so requires splitting a word where there is no line breaking opportunity. (Thus, normally text wraps as needed, but if there is a particularly long word, it does not overflow as it normally would in CSS, it is instead forcibly wrapped at the box's edge.) Regardless of the value of the 'white-space' property, any line breaks inserted by the user agent for the purposes of line wrapping must be placed so as to minimize Δ across each run of consecutive lines between preserved newlines in the source. Δ for a set of lines is defined as the sum over each line of the absolute of the difference between the line's length and the mean line length of the set. I'm not sure we'll be able to do the latter part (nor what the benefit is).