Summarized test results:
Hyphenation

Intended audience: users, XHTML/HTML coders (using editors or scripting), script developers (PHP, JSP, etc.), CSS coders, Web project managers, and anyone who wants to know how well browsers support the line breaking with hyphenation.

Updated

These tests check whether browsers support the hyphenation features described in CSS3 Text and Unicode Standard Annex #14 Line Breaking Properties

Note that the snapshot summaries of these test results are for released versions of the browsers tested. Versions that are still in development may provide better support for these features. The tests themselves do not test any vendor prefixes.

Results

To see the test, click on the link in the left-most column. To see detailed results for a single test, click on the link in the right-most column. To submit test data for a single test, click on the link in the right-most column and then follow the link on that page.

The tables show the latest results from the W3C Test Framework. Below the tables are summaries of the results at a given date. The table data may be more up-to-date than the summary. The tables may also contain some incorrectly scored tests, and tests that relate to non-released versions of browsers. These are not included in the summary.

Soft-hyphen

Assertion Gecko Presto Trident WebKit Detailed results
Soft-hyphens, hidden by default The browser will not display a hyphen-like glyph when the word is not broken.
Soft-hyphens, wrap at hyphen location The browser will will break a word at any soft hyphen.
Soft-hyphens, show hyphens The browser will display a hyphen-like glyph at the end of a line in the middle of a broken word containing a soft hyphen, but only at the end of the line.

Snapshot summary, 2012-08-24
Chrome 21.0.1180.82, Firefox 14.0.1, Internet Explorer 9.0, Opera 12.01, Safari 5.1.7

All browsers tested support hyphenation with the soft-hyphen character as expected, except for Opera. On Mac OSX Opera does the wrapping but doesn't show the hyphens. The same version of Opera tested on Windows, however, did show the hyphens.

hyphens property

Assertion Gecko Presto Trident WebKit Detailed results
hyphens: auto, automatic hyphenation With hyphens:auto words are broken at appropriate hyphenation points as determined automatically by a language-appropriate hyphenation resource.
hyphens: manual, automatic hyphenation With hyphens:manual, words are NOT hyphenated when there are no characters inside the word that explicitly suggest hyphenation opportunities.
hyphens: none, automatic hyphenation With hyphens:none, words are not hyphenated automatically.
hyphens: auto, automatic Arabic hyphenation With hyphens:auto, Arabic words that are hyphenated maintain the joining glyphs on either side of the hyphen.
hyphens: auto, manual hyphenation With hyphens:auto words are broken at appropriate hyphenation points as determined by hyphenation characters inside the word.
hyphens: manual, manual hyphenation With hyphens:manual, words are hyphenated when there are characters inside the word that explicitly suggest hyphenation opportunities.
hyphens: none, manual hyphenation With hyphens:none, words are not hyphenated, even if characters inside the word explicitly define hyphenation opportunities.
hyphens: auto, manual Arabic hyphenation With hyphens:auto, Arabic words that are hyphenated maintain the joining glyphs on either side of the hyphen.

Snapshot summary, 2012-08-24
Chrome 21.0.1180.82, Firefox 14.0.1, Internet Explorer 9.0, Opera 12.01, Safari 5.1.7

No browser supports automatic hyphenation with the hyphens property. (Note, however, that Mozilla and Webkit do support hyphenation with -moz and -webkit.)

All browsers support hyphenation with an explicit soft-hyphen character, as expected, for hyphens set to auto and manual, with the exception noted above that Opera doesn't render the text correctly on Mac OS X. However, no browser prevents soft hyphens appearing when hyphens is set to none. This is unsurprising, given that they don't support the hyphens property.

All browsers retained the joining glyph forms when hyphenating Arabic (although, of course, only the test with explicit soft hyphens produced a result).