No line-break after a hyphen
I'm looking to prevent a line break after a hyphen - on a case-by-case basis that is compatible with all browsers.
Example:
I have this text: 3-3/8" which in HTML is this: 3-3/8”
The problem is that near the end of a line, because of the hyphen, it breaks and wraps to the next line instead of treating it like a full word...
3-
3/8"
I've tried inserting the "zero width no break character",  with no luck...
3-3/8”
I'm seeing this in Safari and thinking it will be the same in all browsers.
The following is my doctype and character encoding...
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
Is there any way I can prevent these from line-breaking after the hyphen? I do not need any solution that applies to the whole page... just something I can insert as needed, like a "zero width no break character", except one that works.
Here is a Demo. Simply make the frame narrower until the line breaks at the hyphen.
‑ is a non-breaking hyphen.
3-3/8″ or 3-3/8″. Quotes are not primes. If you want it in pure ASCII, just use straight double quotes instead ("). Preferably, if it is going to be presented as good, legible text, you would instead use 3<span style="font-variant: diagonal-fractions">3/8</style>″, displaying ‘3⅜″’
Try using the non-breaking hyphen ‑. I've replaced the dash with that character in your jsfiddle, shrunk the frame down as small as it can go, and the line doesn't split there any more.
You could also wrap the relevant text with
<span style="white-space: nowrap;"></span>
‑) might render slightly longer than a regular hyphen in certain browsers was trivial to me.
IE8/9 render the non-breaking hyphen mentioned in CanSpice's answer longer than a typical hyphen. It is the length of an en-dash instead of a typical hyphen. This display difference was a deal breaker for me.
As I could not use the CSS answer specified by Deb I instead opted to use no break tags.
<nobr>e-mail</nobr>
In addition I found a specific scenario that caused IE8/9 to break on a hyphen.
A string contains words separated by non-breaking spaces -
Width is limited
Contains a dash
IE renders it like this.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uxw7L.png
The following code reproduces the problem pictured above. I had to use a meta tag to force rendering to IE9 as IE10 has fixed the issue. No fiddle because it does not support meta tags.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9" />
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<style>
body { padding: 20px; }
div { width: 300px; border: 1px solid gray; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<p>If there is a - and words are separated by the whitespace code &nbsp; then IE will wrap on the dash.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
nobr is the most cross-browser way and works independently of fonts and CSS. The nobr element is not defined in HTML specs, but this should be regarded as a formality only. But if you must write by HTML specs, then Deb’s answer, using CSS, is the best option.
nobr tag is non-standard and might break any time. The MDN documentation does not recommend to use this tag: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/nobr
You can also do it "the joiner way" by inserting "U+2060 Word Joiner".
If Accept-Charset permits, the unicode character itself can be inserted directly into the HTML output.
Otherwise, it can be done using entity encoding. E.g. to join the text red-brown, use:
red-⁠brown
or (decimal equivalent):
red-⁠brown
. Another usable character is "U+FEFF Zero Width No-break Space"[ 1 ]:
red-brown
and (decimal equivalent):
red-brown
[1]: Note that while this method still works in major browsers like Chrome, it has been deprecated since Unicode 3.2.
Comparison of "the joiner way" with "U+2011 Non-breaking Hyphen":
The word joiner can be used for all other characters, not just hyphens.
When using the word joiner, most renderers will rasterize the text identically. On Chrome, FireFox, IE, and Opera, the rendering of normal hyphens, eg: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z is identical to the rendering of normal hyphens (with U+2060 Word Joiner), eg: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z while the above two renders differ from the rendering of "Non-breaking Hyphen", eg: a‑b‑c‑d‑e‑f‑g‑h‑i‑j‑k‑l‑m‑n‑o‑p‑q‑r‑s‑t‑u‑v‑w‑x‑y‑z . (The extent of the difference is browser-dependent and font-dependent. E.g. when using a font declaration of "arial", Firefox and IE11 show relatively huge variations, while Chrome and Opera show smaller variations.)
Comparison of "the joiner way" with <span class=c1></span> (CSS .c1 {white-space:nowrap;}) and <nobr></nobr>:
The word joiner can be used for situations where usage of HTML tags is restricted, e.g. forms of websites and forums.
On the spectrum of presentation and content, majority will consider the word joiner to be closer to content, when compared to tags.
• As tested on Windows 8.1 Core 64-bit using: • IE 11.0.9600.18205 • Firefox 43.0.4 • Chrome 48.0.2564.109 (Official Build) m (32-bit) • Opera 35.0.2066.92
bingo-⁠bongo

Late to the party, but I think this is actually the most elegant. Use the WORD JOINER Unicode character ⁠ on either side of your hyphen, or em dash, or any character.
So, like so:
⁠—⁠
This will join the symbol on both ends to its neighbors (without adding a space) and prevent line breaking.
Following on from @den’s useful JSX solution, this worked for me:
<h2>{props.name.replace('-', '-\u2060')}</h2>
replace('-', '\u2011') which is equal to the non-breaking hyphen or ‑ (mentioned in the accepted answer) is a good option.
.replace(/-/gm, '-\u2060');
JSX solution example using word joiner unicode character:
<div>{`This is JSX-${'\u2060'}related example`}</div>
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. It just never occurred to me that there was a stand-alone hyphen character that won't break.