w:wordWrap (Allow Line Breaking At Character Level)

Controls whether a line can break in the middle of a word when no word break point is available.

Parent elements

w:pPr

Description

w:wordWrap is a toggle property that controls character-level line breaking. When active, the processor is permitted to break a line mid-word if no other break opportunity exists on the line — for example, for very long URLs or unspaced CJK content.

It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.3.1.45.

When true (the default): line breaks may occur between any two characters if needed.
When false: lines may overflow the text boundary rather than break mid-word.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_OnOff`	`true`, `false`, `1`, `0`, `on`, `off`	Enables character-level word wrap. Omit to inherit.

Examples

<!-- Disable character-level word wrap -->
<w:p>
  <w:pPr>
    <w:wordWrap w:val="false"/>
  </w:pPr>
  <w:r><w:t>https://example.com/very/long/url/that/overflows</w:t></w:r>
</w:p>

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

var para = new Paragraph(
    new ParagraphProperties(
        new WordWrap { Val = false }
    ),
    new Run(new Text("https://example.com/very/long/url/that/overflows"))
);

Notes

Particularly relevant for East Asian (CJK) text where word boundaries differ from Western languages.
The w:kinsoku property controls separate CJK typography line-breaking rules.