Limit maximum height of
despite text being longer

Question

I'm creating a document using the BFO Report library (embedded in NetSuite ERP). I have a text block which I would like to limit to two lines, truncating if it's more than that, but I can't seem to get overflow:hidden to actually do anything. Setting height limits the minimum height, but if the text is longer it extends the containing rather than being cut off.

Here's the document I'm rendering:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE pdf PUBLIC '-//big.faceless.org//report' 'report-1.1.dtd'>
<pdf>
    <body width="3in" height="1.25in" padding="0">
        <div font-family="sans-serif" font-size="14pt" width="3in" height="2em" border="1px solid green" overflow="hidden">
            <p margin="0">Short Name</p>
        </div>
        <pbr/>
        <div font-family="sans-serif" font-size="14pt" width="3in" height="2em" border="1px solid green" overflow="hidden">
            <p margin="0">This Is An Item With A Really Extremely Long Name That Doesn't Fit</p>
        </div>
    </body>
</pdf>

And the resulting PDF:

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '19 at 18:05

The BFO overflow attribute tag only works on absolutely positioned elements, as per their documentation:

If a block is absolutely positioned and larger than it's parent element, what to do with the content that "overflows" the parent elements block.

It appears the element containing the content you want to control must be positioned absolutely, but the overflow attribute can be applied to the parent element. So you can add position="absolute" to your <p> element for the effect you want:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE pdf PUBLIC '-//big.faceless.org//report' 'report-1.1.dtd'>
<pdf>
    <body width="3in" height="1.25in" padding="0">
        <div font-family="sans-serif" font-size="14pt" width="3in" height="2em" 
border="1px solid green" overflow="hidden">
            <p margin="0">Short Name</p>
        </div>
        <pbr/>
        <div font-family="sans-serif" font-size="14pt" width="3in" height="2em" border="1px solid green" overflow="hidden">
            <p position="absolute" margin="0">This Is An Item With A Really Extremely Long Name That Doesn't Fit</p>
        </div>
    </body>
</pdf>

I read that documentation and somehow overlooked that sentence. Thanks for the help! — Wolfgang, Apr 25 '19 at 18:32

Limit maximum height of despite text being longer

1 Answers1

Limit maximum height of
despite text being longer