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Normally if a word is too long, one can add a hyphen to split the word in two, making part of the word on the next line:

This is an ex-
ample of a te-
xt that uses
hyphens as li-
ne breaks.

If I'm displaying a URL though, which is too long, I'm concerned if people see a "-" they will not understand if it is part of the URL or not. Especially as many of my URLs already have "-" throughout, which would sometimes be a good place to break, it seems to make it even more confusing.

Should a new hyphen be placed when a URL is broken across lines?

I'm using Chicago Manual of Style if that is important.

1 Answer 1

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14.18 URLs and line breaks. In a printed work, if a URL has to be broken at the end of a line, the break should be after a colon or a double slash (//); before a single slash (/), a tilde (~), a period, a comma, a hyphen, an underline (_), a question mark, a number sign, or a percent symbol; or before or after an equals sign or ampersand. ... A hyphen should never be added to a URL to denote a line break, nor should a hyphen that is part of a URL appear at the end of a line. (CMOS, 17th ed., p. 750)

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