text-overflow: ellipsis in table-cell without width

This is not really a clean solution, but it uses no JS and works in every browser I've tested.

My solution consists in wrapping the cell's contents inside a table with table-layout: fixed and width: 100%.

See the demo.

Here's the full solution:

<table class="main-table">
    <tr>
        <td class="nowrap">Button 1</td>
        <td>
            <table class="fixed-table">
                <tr>
                    <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Delectus doloremque magni illo reprehenderit consequuntur quia dicta labore veniam distinctio quod iure vitae porro nesciunt. Minus ipsam facilis! Velit sapiente numquam.</td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </td>
        <td class="nowrap">Button 2</td>
    </tr>
</table>

.main-table {
    width: 100%;
}

.fixed-table {
    /* magic */
    width: 100%;
    table-layout: fixed;
    
    /*not really necessary, removes extra white space */
    border-collapse: collapse;
    border-spacing: 0;
    border: 0;
}
.fixed-table td {
    white-space: nowrap;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

.nowrap {
    /* used to keep buttons' text in a single line,
     * remove this class to allow natural line-breaking.
     */
    white-space: nowrap;
}

It's not really clear what's the intent for the side buttons, hence I've used white-space: nowrap to keep them in the same line. Depending on the use case, you may prefer to apply a min-width and let them line-break naturally.

Set your 100% width on the table and specify a fixed table-layout:

table {
    width: 100%;
    table-layout: fixed;
}

Then, set the following for whichever table cell should have the ellipsis:

td:nth-child(2) {
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    white-space: nowrap;
}

Voila! Responsive table with an ellipsis overflow!

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/VyxES/

HTML

<tr>
    <td>
        <span class="ellipsis"> A very looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong string</span>
    </td>
</tr>

CSS

td {
    position: relative;
}

.ellipsis {
    /*Here is the trick:*/
    position: absolute;
    width: 100%;
    /*End of the trick*/

    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    white-space: nowrap;
    overflow: hidden;
}

A cleaner way would be to simply set a max-width on the td.

Based on @Fabrício Matté's reply,

http://jsfiddle.net/V83Ae/89/

<table class="main-table">
<tr>
    <td class="nowrap">Button 1</td>
    <td class="truncate">
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Delectus doloremque magni illo reprehenderit consequuntur quia dicta labore veniam distinctio quod iure vitae porro nesciunt. Minus ipsam facilis! Velit sapiente numquam.</td>
    <td class="nowrap">Button 2</td>
</tr>

And

body { margin: 0; }

.main-table {
    width: 100%;
}

.truncate {
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    white-space  : nowrap;
    overflow     : hidden;
    max-width    : 100px; /* Can be any size, just small enough */
}

.nowrap {
    white-space: nowrap;
}

I have no idea why this works, but it does, so if someone can figure how why applying a max-width works then please let me know as I did it by accident.

After banging my head for hours, with no solution that worked, finally found it.

The element you want for the base of the overflow nees a min/max width, where the max is inferior to the min width. You can then overflow the lement or a child of it, where you can set the with whatever way you choose: %, px, auto.

I tried it in more than one tricky situation and it works on all.

I'll try to post a fiidle with my examples but this should help you going.

/* Apply on base element for proper overflow */
max-width: 1px;
min-width: 10000px;

/* Apply on self or child, according to need */
width: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
white-space: nowrap;
text-overflow: ellipsis;

Here you go

<div class="container">
  <div>
    Button 1
  </div>
  <div class="fill">
    <div class="lockText">
      A one-lined text that is too long and has to be...
    </div>
  </div>
  <div>
    Button 2
  </div>
</div>

The trick is to set up a table layout with a cell that takes up leftover space first (css tables, mind you!).

.container {
  display: table;
  width: 100%;
}

.container > div {
  display: table-cell;
  white-space: nowrap;
  position : relative;
  width : auto;

  /*make it easier to see what's going on*/
  padding : 2px;
  border : 1px solid gray;
}

.container > .fill {
  width : 100%;
}

Then add your text that constrains itself within.

.lockText {
  position : absolute;
  left : 0;
  right : 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

I originally used https://stackoverflow.com/a/19623352/2453676, but I had a use case where I didn't want to use a table. The same thing can be done using only divs.

  <div class="ellipsis-div__parent" title="text that will be truncated with ellipsis">
    <div class="ellipsis-div__child">
      text that will be truncated with ellipsis
    </div>
  </div>

./ellipsis-div.css

.ellipsis-div__parent {
  display: table;
  table-layout: fixed;
  width: 100%;
}

.ellipsis-div__child {
  white-space: nowrap;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

Here is a working example. https://codepen.io/54rktech/pen/ZErgYYY

[update] My apologies, does not seem to work 'just like that': http://jsfiddle.net/kQKfc/1/

Will leave it here though, because it certain situations it does the trick for us.
[/update]

We have this css in our project, give it a shot:

.nowr
{
    display: block;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    white-space: nowrap;
}