NOBR and WBR

Stop a line breaking, then mark the one place it may break after all.

In 2026: NOBR still works in every browser and is formally obsolete. WBR went the other way: it was a Netscape extension and it is now standard HTML. Two tags, same origin, opposite endings.

Where it came from: Netscape Navigator 1.1 extensions, 1995. WBR was standardised in HTML5. MDN ↗

<nobr>This whole sentence refuses to wrap no matter how narrow the window gets.</nobr>

<p>A very long identifier like
<nobr>supercalifragilistic<wbr>expialidocious<wbr>andthensome</nobr>
gets to break only where you said it could.</p>

<!-- The standard way to say the same thing -->
<span style="white-space: nowrap">will not wrap</span>