controling <pre> width

I have text that is formated with <pre> going in to a <div> which has its width constrained to 80%. If I want the text not to bust through the <div> and streem endlessly right, what should I do?

-Thanks!

You could set overflow:hidden or overflow:scroll for the pre tag. The first will hide what wont fit while the second will add a scrollbar to the pre tag when it is needed.

Have you tried giving the <pre> a width (possibly of 80%) too?

the thing is, that I want the text to form a column, as one might do by placing it inside a div.

I tryed the width on the pre tag itsef already, didnt do anything.

Any other ideas?

I'm guessing that you want new-line and white-space formatting to be preserved but for wrapping to also occur? You would use white-space: pre-wrap for that. Support for it is pretty poor though.

Resources:

Web Browser CSS Support (http://www.webdevout.net/browser_support_css.php?IE6=on&IE7=on&FX1_5=on&FX2=on&OP9=on&KN3_5=on&SF2=on&uas=CUSTOM#css2propsbasic)
White-Space and Generated Content (http://cheeaun.phoenity.com/weblog/2005/06/whitespace-and-generated-content.html)

Ahh it worked!

pre{
font-family:Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
white-space: pre; /* CSS2 */
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap; /* Mozilla */
white-space: -hp-pre-wrap; /* HP printers */
white-space: -o-pre-wrap; /* Opera 7 */
white-space: -pre-wrap; /* Opera 4-6 */
white-space: pre-wrap; /* CSS 2.1 */
white-space: pre-line; /* CSS 3 (and 2.1 as well, actually) */
word-wrap: break-word; /* IE */
}


that setup gleened off one of your resources did the trick.
Thanks!