This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Responsive
Why does text get cut off on a website?
Text gets cut off when the box it sits in has a fixed width and the content isn't allowed to wrap. On small screens, the end of a word or a whole sentence then goes missing — visitors read a fragment. The audit service compares, across four device sizes, how much room every piece of text needs against how much it gets, and shows affected spots with examples and a screenshot.
How cut-off text happens
Common causes are fixed widths from a design template, a ban on line wrapping, or very long words — no rarity in German. Translations cause it too: the English button text fits, the German version is longer and gets cut off. On desktop, this often stays invisible, since there's enough room there. Only on a smartphone with 390 pixels of width does it show whether every piece of text finds its place. That's why the audit service measures every device profile separately — a text can be fully readable on a tablet and cut off on a phone. The report states separate findings for every device size, each with the start of the affected text as an example.
How the audit service measures overflow
The check examines paragraphs, headings, and list items in a real browser: if a text needs more width than its box provides, there's an overflow. Two safeguards prevent false alarms. First, collapsed menus and elements not rendered at all don't count — their content is deliberately hidden, not cut off. Without this exclusion, every website with expandable navigation would get dozens of false findings. Second, individual edge cases of a few pixels are tolerated; a finding is only reported once several elements are affected. Every finding is collected twice, and only what both measurements agree on counts. That way, the report describes genuine reading obstacles instead of random technical hits.
- Read your most important pages on a phone and watch for words that end mid-letter or break off with an ellipsis.
- Check buttons with longer labels like "Request a no-obligation quote" — they're commonly affected.
- Ask your agency to replace fixed widths with flexible ones, so text can wrap.
- Check after text changes and translations whether every label stays fully visible.
FAQ
What does text overflow mean?
Text overflow means: a text needs more room than its surrounding box offers. The browser either cuts off the rest or lets it spill over the edge. Visitors then see half-words or incomplete sentences. The cause almost always lies in the page's structure — fixed widths or suppressed line wrapping — and can be fixed in a targeted way.
Why does my website look good on a computer but not on a phone?
On a computer, every piece of text has plenty of room; on a phone, only 390 pixels of width are available. Fixed widths chosen for the large screen become too tight there, and text runs out of its box. That's why the audit service measures every device size separately and states findings for each profile individually.
Does hidden content in menus count as cut-off text?
Collapsed menus and deliberately hidden elements stay out of the measurement. Their content is hidden by design and only appears after a click — that's intentional, and something different from a cut-off sentence. This distinction protects against false alarms: only text visitors are meant to see, and which is still incomplete, gets reported.